Landing at the wrong airport, again?

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Quattro Pete

Quattro Pete

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http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/travel/kansas-cargo-plane-wrong-airport/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

This is the second such occurrence in the past few days. The other one was some military jet that also ended up landing at the wrong airport. My question is: how does this happen? Do the pilots punch in the the wrong destination in their nav system and the plane just takes them there? I know mistakes happen. Just trying to understand what could have led to this?

EDIT: Correction, that C-17 incident happened a while back, not recently.
 
Yeah, I'm sure it'll take off just fine once they lighten it up a bit. Not worried about that. Just curious how he ended up there in the first place.
 
If the airports were close together, and the runways had the same orientations, it's just a case of human error. That's exactly what happened in the C-17 incident.

EDIT: Just looked. Those airports do NOT have the same runway orientations, but they are close (within 10 degrees).
 
The pilots must have got in the general vicinity and visually focused on the wrong airport and didn't glance at the GPS or compass.

From a pilot in another article I found:

"Let's look at the facts of the article. It was NIGHT, therefore it was dark. It was a flight carrying freight, so there is a very good possibility the flight crew had never flown into Wichita before. To the naked eye, and at night, the only thing that distinguishes a military airfield from a civilian airport is a split white rotating beacon. When approaching a brightly lit area that can be hard to distinguish. It is not at all uncommon for approach control to vector an incoming aircraft onto the final approach heading miles from the airport and when the flight crew announces that they have the airport in sight, depending on traffic, they are immediately passed off to the tower. Again, depending on traffic, on initial contact with the tower the aircraft may be cleared to land. If the wrong airport runway happens to be on or very close to the approach heading of the proper airport runway the mistake could easily go undetected until the aircraft lands. For those of you that are harping about the use of the GPS, how many of you use your GPS to verify what you see and have identified as your destination is actually your intended destination. I think probably none. My guess is all of the visual clues were present so the flight crew landed the aircraft. In addition it's real hard to tell how long a runway is by looking at the runway lights."
 
Wow. Just watched it take off and they got off the ground way before the end of the runway and didn't even do a full power breakstand like the C17 did. I wonder if that particular 747 has more powerful engines than any of the normal ones?
 
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If it's Atlas Airlines, it's probably an early 70's 747-100 or -131...

Atlas usually gets it's planes from the boneyard, they also fly DC-10's...
 
Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/travel/kansas-cargo-plane-wrong-airport/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

This is the second such occurrence in the past few days. The other one was some military jet that also ended up landing at the wrong airport. My question is: how does this happen? Do the pilots punch in the the wrong destination in their nav system and the plane just takes them there? I know mistakes happen. Just trying to understand what could have led to this?

EDIT: Correction, that C-17 incident happened a while back, not recently.




"The engineers have been running the calculations all night" LOLOL. It takes 5 minutes to perform the takeoff calculation, if that, with modern methods.


Without electronic guidance and especially at night, airports with similar runway orientation can easily be mistaken for each other.
 
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no this is a new 747 at least 400 series owned by Boeing and used to haul parts for the dreamliner, it has a huge expansion to the fuselage in diameter and the whole thing swings open to load and unload
my flying buddy flies 747 800 and 400 units for them, they have gotten rid of most of the old 200 series
 
That's one whale of an aircraft. One of the things I liked about Boeing planes, when I had to fly for work, was the way they accelerated and got off the ground with authority. Not like a DC-9, they always seemed a little too leisurely in their takeoff roll.
 
It is nearly impossible to do that!

Even in the old days (1970's) all "active" military air ports / bases are controlled ie have a controller and a tower he or she sits in and spots and tells the aircraft its okay or not to land or take off as well as an instrument landing system. Even a low time student pilot can easily find the proper airport to land on, simply by using the VOR in the aircraft. Now with the fancy electronics found in the planes today, and with ILS "instrument landing system" and since all large planes like a 747 is flying under instrument flight rules. I see no reason that an 8 mile mistake can be made. It was impossible 40 years ago and still is today. How could the ILS pickup the signal of the wrong airport? I would like to know more about the pilots? Age, experience etc. they may need to retake their FAA exam, there is more to flying a plane than just take off and landing, they need to learn the basics.
 
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"The engineers have been running the calculations all night" LOLOL. It takes 5 minutes to perform the takeoff calculation, if that, with modern methods.



You can bet the fuel load was minimal on takeoff. My understanding is it had a low fuel load when it landed. Apparently the flight originated in Italy, flew to JFK in New York, and then took off from there to land at Jabara.

With over 240,000 pounds of thrust, takeoff with minimal fuel load should have been a piece of cake. You can bet the engines were spooled up for max thrust.
 
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