If the AvHerald 'observer's ' report is correct, I am flabberghasted. To go from visual left-hand downwind to visual right-hand downwind for the wrong airport without an apparent whimper takes some beating.

Are US pilots adopting the Ryanair policy of not landing you where you think you are going?:)

Shame on you, US of A - this is getting a bit repetitive. What is going on?

AvHerald - "wrong airport" - You may see many carriers other than US ones listed. I do see listed the mention a few weeks ago of a certain 747's wing slicing a building nearly in half. Two closely timed incidents do not indicate a trend.

- yes, but it was at the right airport:D

Don't forget the good old USAF recent screw up.

He simply reminding you that you're not purer than than the newly fallen snow.

Oh I don't think they did too bad.

After all, they did land in the correct state, near the correct city (actually in the city when you think about it) AND most importantly, on the proper mainland.

Unlike a former chief pilot I once flew for that not only landed at the wrong airport, the wrong city but completely missed the mainland and landed on an island.

Now that took some doing. And no, I was not the co-pilot on that trip.

Strangely enough, a few months later I was the Chief Pilot of the man that owned the aircraft on that trip. :p



Now, who here remembers Kansas City airport (MKC) back in the late 60s to the mid 70s before the new MCI airport became operational?

Those that do will also remember the Fairfax airport on the Kansas side of the river, just west of MKC right across the river from MKC with the same basic runway set up.

Now you talk about a trap for the unwary pilot/crew, that was it. In poor weather, with a crosswind from the west, when you broke out of the clouds anywhere from around one to three thousand feet with five or less miles visilibty on the ILS landing to the south, you were lined up perfectly with a runway at Fairfax. You had to force yourself to look left for MCI.

This situation trapped pilots private pilots, charter pilots, coporate pilots, military pilots, airline pilots and even a few TWA pilots whose home base at the time was MKC.

Landing at the wrong airport has happened in the past, happens now and will on into the future.

But I managed not to for 42 plus years. Knock on wood. :\

Process as product.

Before the whiz-bang computer did all the flight planning chores for pilots, we had to get out charts, approach plates, supplements, etc, and go through an information gathering process as we built flight plan, alternates, and fuel ladder/fuel plan.
In ths process, such things as airport diagrams, were airfield is located vis a vis local geography (particularly for unfamiliar fields) and lther fields, and a lot of other detail had to be looked into before ever taking off. Just by digging into that detail, getting one's hands dirty, once could find any number of interesting local issues to be on guard for.

For an airliner, on standard routes, some of that function can come in a pre made flight packet. All well and good, but a given crew may go to one location more than others, and not be as familiar with a given locale as other crews are.

On a given day, what process does the average FO and CAPT go thorugh in discussing the take off, and then each of the planned destinations, and alternates, for that days sectors flown for the company?

"As loaded in the FMS" strikes me as a severe short circuit of the process of becoming familiar with where one is going before one takes off.

Just a thought from a luddite. :O

As con-pilot points out, even with that old process as a helpful tool toward focing SA into one's planning, people still ended up in the wrong place.

''Having said that, we don't need ATC in the cockpit anymore than they already are.''

Such a turgid comment from somebody who should perhaps, and I suggest actually does, know better.

If ATC had been doing their job properly and not clearing a/c to land without either
a. identifying them visually or
b. monitoring them on the radar/tower atm (as we are compelled to do here in the UK)
then this would not have happened.

However superior we feel, we all, on occasion, need saving from ourselves just as the TWA crew did on almost landing wheels up at LHR back in the 80's. :ok:

ATC watch out
 

@Rage :

I'm afraid there is no more FAA tower in Branson airport since may 5 th, 2013 and operating as a ATCT non federal tower from may 6th .

But you're right, no airplane lights in sight from tower when airplane annouced in final , should have been an alert : sometimes back to basics upthere too .

You might want to dig deeper into your system details. You might be right given what database option your company installed, but at my US carrier and it sounds the same at SouthWest, any airport with a runway >3500' in in the GPWS database and will not sound off if on normal approach course.

This is different from the FMS database where the airport options are much more restricted to approved airports available to display on the screens.

Me thinks it's that way in case of a split-s whilst on fire and landing on the first available piece of concrete. Last thing needed would be a "Too Low Terrain" blaring.

Yes, they screwed up but can you imagine what Asiana would have done? They will be back to work in two weeks and hope they have a great retirement party in the future. We all have screwed up and got by with it. Sometimes you can't.

REGARDING ATC's role.

Please recall the deadly accident in kentucky in which a regional jet took off on the wrong runway. ATC didn't look out the window to make sure they were on the right,make that correct, runway.

LOTS of mistakes are caught with cooperation between pilots and ATC. WE all need to look out for each other.

I've seen screw ups similiar to the SOUTHWEST thing, that didn't go all the way to a landing. Caught way early by someone, somewhere.

JUST glad no one was hurt.

MAYBE BOEING is doing this to show their good short field capabilities on 737 and Dreamlifter? ;-)

Branson tower closes at 2100 local.

Many towers remain open to allow late airline flights to land with ATC's watchful eyes, and local arff available.

My airline has actually paid for this on occasion, paying the overtime of controller through some arangement with somebody. Even though we have approval for CTAF use.

con-pilot:

I dunno. I flew into MKC as a TWA F/O circa 1965. I was then based there in 1967-68 flying captain on the DC-9-10.

We were all quite familiar with Fairfax, and well knew the relationship of the two airports.

Any TWA flight that landed in error at Fairfax was before 1964.

CNN: Third person suspended in runway mixup
 

Seems the captain and FO weren't alone...

3rd person in Southwest 737 cockpit raises new questions - CNN.com

@ Old Boeing Driver (post 79) - in "the old days" it happened as well you know :bored:

@ Surplus 1 (post 83) - your incident in more details (DC-10 misses Frankfurt runway - by 300km - 10/11/1995 - Flight Global)

I remember that some time after the incident the F/O of this flight was hired by DHL Brussels to fly cargo at night....can't remember what happened to the Capt and the F/E however.....
Anybody an update on this? ....

I assume that's non-refundable. :}

It's a bit eerie that in two months there are two incidents like this where the wrong airport CTAF controlled lighting just unfortuitously happened to be on.

While not quibbling with the thrust of your post, the Blue Grass take off was from a runway which had almost coincident threshold with the correct runway. From the tower the positioning on the incorrect runway may not have been apparent. By the time it would have been visually apparent to the tower whatever was said could have made things worse.

However, back to this thread , as you say - this is a team event and there can be problems with authority gradients from cockpit to ATC at times. So it pays to accept checks from ATC as much as from the junior FO in the right hand seat.

I think this incident hit VERY VERY CLOSE to home for some people!;)

The comment about Asiana is utter codswallop.

Sawbones62

Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: KSAN
Age: 51
Posts: 8
CNN: Third person suspended in runway mixup
Seems the captain and FO weren't alone...

3rd person in Southwest 737 cockpit raises new questions - CNN.com

Some say : a third pair of eyes makes for safer operations. Now before someone scream" he's not a pilot ", hey he is a qualified dispatcher! He would certainly be in the loop.:ok: