NWA plane lands at wrong airport

[Andrew]

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1631/4837686.html

[WalterM140]

>http://www.startribune.com/stories/1631/4837686.html
>

Heard a thing like this a few years ago; they thought they were landing in
Amsterdam, turned out to be Frankfort, as I recall.

Walt

[Robey Price]

After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, WalterM140
confessed the following:

>Heard a thing like this a few years ago; they thought they were landing in
>Amsterdam, turned out to be Frankfort, as I recall.

Kinda...sorta. DC-10 enroute to Frankfurt, ATC over the UK started
them down early...landed in Brussels (same ILS freq as Frankfurt and
similar runway alignment).

New Captain (WRT to international flying) on his first flight after
IOE with a piece of **** First Officer (uniformly hated). CA kept
saying, "this doesn't look right, this is too early..." and the FO
kept saying "No, this is right...that's the airport." The SO was kinda
tumbleweed. CA knew prior to touchdown they were not in Frankfurt (but
not sure where he was), but landed anyway, admitted his mistake to the
passengers immediately after landing.

CA retired in short order...FO finally got fired after years of second
chances...SO retrained.

[Bob Liberty]

I can remember as an ole nav catching the pilots dialing in the wrong ILS or
VOR. It was fun scoring a gotcha! But they did listen over water.
ole nav

"Robey Price" > wrote in message
...
> After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, WalterM140
> confessed the following:
>
> >Heard a thing like this a few years ago; they thought they were landing
in
> >Amsterdam, turned out to be Frankfort, as I recall.
>
> Kinda...sorta. DC-10 enroute to Frankfurt, ATC over the UK started
> them down early...landed in Brussels (same ILS freq as Frankfurt and
> similar runway alignment).
>
> New Captain (WRT to international flying) on his first flight after
> IOE with a piece of **** First Officer (uniformly hated). CA kept
> saying, "this doesn't look right, this is too early..." and the FO
> kept saying "No, this is right...that's the airport." The SO was kinda
> tumbleweed. CA knew prior to touchdown they were not in Frankfurt (but
> not sure where he was), but landed anyway, admitted his mistake to the
> passengers immediately after landing.
>
> CA retired in short order...FO finally got fired after years of second
> chances...SO retrained.
>
>
>

[Ed Rasimus]

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 21:07:35 GMT, Robey Price >
wrote:

>After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, WalterM140
>confessed the following:
>
>>Heard a thing like this a few years ago; they thought they were landing in
>>Amsterdam, turned out to be Frankfort, as I recall.
>
>Kinda...sorta. DC-10 enroute to Frankfurt, ATC over the UK started
>them down early...landed in Brussels (same ILS freq as Frankfurt and
>similar runway alignment).
>
>New Captain (WRT to international flying) on his first flight after
>IOE with a piece of **** First Officer (uniformly hated). CA kept
>saying, "this doesn't look right, this is too early..." and the FO
>kept saying "No, this is right...that's the airport." The SO was kinda
>tumbleweed. CA knew prior to touchdown they were not in Frankfurt (but
>not sure where he was), but landed anyway, admitted his mistake to the
>passengers immediately after landing.
>
>CA retired in short order...FO finally got fired after years of second
>chances...SO retrained.
>

Gotta say that reflects a total breakdown in situational awareness. No
navaids in use, no crew coordination, no apparent communication, no
listening to the controller saying "Slowbird 452, this is Brussels
Approach...." Calling them "kinda tumbleweed" is an understatement.

All that being said, however, there are a lot of places in the world
in which pairs of airports are nearby and even have the same runway
alignment. It's usually a major part of squadron in-briefing to point
them out. Pairs that I recall include Bitburg/Spangdahlem,
Torrejon/Barajas, and Incirlik/Adana. The Spanish pair and the Turkish
pair all were 05/23 runways. And, all within ten miles of each other.
(Bit/Spang are 4.3 miles apart IIRC.)

"Caveat aviator"


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

[Robey Price]

After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Ed Rasimus
confessed the following:

>Gotta say that reflects a total breakdown in situational awareness.

That pretty much sums up the FAA and NWA's conclusion.

> Calling them "kinda tumbleweed" is an understatement.

Hey I was being nice calling the SO tumbleweed...she was totally out
of the loop. The FO was very assertive, this guy had been demoted to
FO because of a bunch of **** he pulled as a CA. Things like adding
"Lifeguard" to the callsign going to LAS because a passenger (during
boarding) mentioned his wife was going into labor in LAS.

The somewhat humourous aspect of the Brussels event...the moving map
display in the cabin showed their location to the passengers. So they
knew they were in Brussels even if the crew didn't until after
landing.

This current episode at Rapid City/Ellsworth has me stumped. I had
assumed this was a DC-9 incident at first blush.

The 757 software has the ability to display all airports with at least
a 5000' runway. I'd imagine the A-320 can as well, so unless they had
a "map shift" due to a faulty ADIRU (think INS) I don't know how they
missed the airport with the magic ****.

I'm guessing that the CEO of NWA will want these two guys fired...he
wanted guys fired for leaving engines running at the gate (there more
to it than meets the eye, sorta).

Robey

[John A. Weeks III]

In article >, WalterM140
> wrote:

> >http://www.startribune.com/stories/1631/4837686.html
> >
>
> Heard a thing like this a few years ago; they thought they were landing in
> Amsterdam, turned out to be Frankfort, as I recall.

They did this about a decade ago with one of the smaller planes,
either a 727 or DC-9. The crew landed at the Wausau, Wisconsin,
airport. Only problem was that the passenger terminal was at
the Central Wisconsin Airport about 10 miles to the south. The
runway was too short to fly the plane out as-is, so they had to
bring in a new crew, strip down everything that could be removed,
drain out almost all the fuel, and then do a max performance take-
off.

-john-

--
================================================== ==================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ==================

[Ed Rasimus]

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 23:45:41 GMT, Robey Price >
wrote:

>Hey I was being nice calling the SO tumbleweed...she was totally out
>of the loop.

Say no more, lest we stir the dark forces of political correctness.

>The somewhat humourous aspect of the Brussels event...the moving map
>display in the cabin showed their location to the passengers. So they
>knew they were in Brussels even if the crew didn't until after
>landing.
>
>This current episode at Rapid City/Ellsworth has me stumped. I had
>assumed this was a DC-9 incident at first blush.
>
>The 757 software has the ability to display all airports with at least
>a 5000' runway. I'd imagine the A-320 can as well, so unless they had
>a "map shift" due to a faulty ADIRU (think INS) I don't know how they
>missed the airport with the magic ****.

Was about four years ago that a 727 headed for Hayden CO (serves the
Steamboat Springs ski area) landed about 12 miles long at Craig CO.
Hayden Regional is atop a mesa with long, wide, ILS-served runway and
little or no development surrounding. Craig Muni is almost in town,
surrounded by trees and the Yampa River--short, narrow and ringed with
small airplanes.

Got it stopped in time, but had to shut down and bus the PAX to their
destination. Special crew came in, along with fuel bowsers to download
fuel to minimum weight. Flew it out over to Hayden. Big event for the
locals to see the big jet come to town.

Of course, the 727 isn't known for a lot of whiz-bang technology like
moving map displays.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

[John Hairell]

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 16:26:56 -0600, Ed Rasimus
> wrote:

[stuff snipped]

>All that being said, however, there are a lot of places in the world
>in which pairs of airports are nearby and even have the same runway
>alignment. It's usually a major part of squadron in-briefing to point
>them out. Pairs that I recall include Bitburg/Spangdahlem,
>Torrejon/Barajas, and Incirlik/Adana. The Spanish pair and the Turkish
>pair all were 05/23 runways. And, all within ten miles of each other.
>(Bit/Spang are 4.3 miles apart IIRC.)
>
>"Caveat aviator"
>

Fort Hood has two airfields like this which have ensnared unwary
(mostly USAF) aviators. Hood AAF and Robert Gray AAF have runways
with the same headings. The runways are something like 7 miles apart.
Gray has 11,000+ feet (it was a SAC base at one time) and Hood has a
much shorter runway used mostly by helicopters. In two years that I
worked ATC at Hood I saw several USAF aircraft (mostly C-130s) attempt
to land there when they thought they were landing at Robert Gray.
This usually happened more in the evening or at night.

This was common enough that when USAF aircraft called final to Robert
Gray tower but were nowhere in sight the Robert Gray tower guys would
automatically call Hood tower on the hotline to look to see if they
saw a USAF fixed-wing on final. The aircraft would get a red light
and a warning on the guard push. I remember a C-130 one day almost
touching down on the runway when he figured out he was in the wrong
place. Evidently he didn't see the red light from the tower and
wasn't monitoring the guard freqs.

The interesting part was that Hood AAF had an always hot range just
north of it, which wasn't a problem with helicopter traffic which had
set departure/arrival corridors, but USAF fixed-wings had to make a
hasty right turn at low altitude to avoid getting shot down. I've
seen more than one C-130 make a near 90-degree bank at low altitude
trying to beat feet out of there.

Hood AAF tower commo to departing USAF (red-faced) fixed-winged
aviators: "Thanks for the low approach".

John Hairell )

[matheson31]

Sort of like Bitburg and Spangdhalem back in the day.

Only 8 kilometers apart, the traffic pattern at Spang was left hand break
and at Bitburg was right hand break, in both cases to avoid the base housing
areas and to de-conflict extended downwinds.

Every once in a while (on those USAFE VFR days) an F-15 would show up on
initial at Spang, break right followed by an immediate left turn to Bitburg,
after the pilot had looked down and saw he was directly over the housing
area, (that wasn't supposed to be there).

--
Les Matheson
F-4C(WW)/D/E/G(WW), AC-130A, MC-130E WSO/EWO (ret)


"John Hairell" > wrote in message
...
> On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 16:26:56 -0600, Ed Rasimus
> > wrote:
>
> [stuff snipped]
>
> >All that being said, however, there are a lot of places in the world
> >in which pairs of airports are nearby and even have the same runway
> >alignment. It's usually a major part of squadron in-briefing to point
> >them out. Pairs that I recall include Bitburg/Spangdahlem,
> >Torrejon/Barajas, and Incirlik/Adana. The Spanish pair and the Turkish
> >pair all were 05/23 runways. And, all within ten miles of each other.
> >(Bit/Spang are 4.3 miles apart IIRC.)
> >
> >"Caveat aviator"
> >
>
> Fort Hood has two airfields like this which have ensnared unwary
> (mostly USAF) aviators. Hood AAF and Robert Gray AAF have runways
> with the same headings. The runways are something like 7 miles apart.
> Gray has 11,000+ feet (it was a SAC base at one time) and Hood has a
> much shorter runway used mostly by helicopters. In two years that I
> worked ATC at Hood I saw several USAF aircraft (mostly C-130s) attempt
> to land there when they thought they were landing at Robert Gray.
> This usually happened more in the evening or at night.
>
> This was common enough that when USAF aircraft called final to Robert
> Gray tower but were nowhere in sight the Robert Gray tower guys would
> automatically call Hood tower on the hotline to look to see if they
> saw a USAF fixed-wing on final. The aircraft would get a red light
> and a warning on the guard push. I remember a C-130 one day almost
> touching down on the runway when he figured out he was in the wrong
> place. Evidently he didn't see the red light from the tower and
> wasn't monitoring the guard freqs.
>
> The interesting part was that Hood AAF had an always hot range just
> north of it, which wasn't a problem with helicopter traffic which had
> set departure/arrival corridors, but USAF fixed-wings had to make a
> hasty right turn at low altitude to avoid getting shot down. I've
> seen more than one C-130 make a near 90-degree bank at low altitude
> trying to beat feet out of there.
>
> Hood AAF tower commo to departing USAF (red-faced) fixed-winged
> aviators: "Thanks for the low approach".
>
> John Hairell )


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[Charlie Echo]

EAGAN, Minn. (AP) -- Two pilots at the controls of a
Northwest Airlines flight when it landed at the wrong airport have
been suspended from flying pending an investigation, an airline
spokesman said Monday.
Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch said the two pilots "have
been held from service" until the review is complete. No other
details were released.
The flight carrying 117 passengers to Rapid City, S.D.,
veered off course Saturday and landed at nearby Ellsworth Air Force
Base.
The plane remained on the ground for more than three hours
as the pilots told Air Force security officers what went wrong, and
a new crew was dispatched to continue the flight to Rapid City.
Air Force Lt. Christine Millette said the pilots reported
that they were in contact with Rapid City controllers on their
approach when they descended into a cloud. When the plane came out
of the cloud, the first runway the pilots saw was the one at
Ellsworth.
Millette said the two runways are about 7 miles apart and
parallel to one another.

[sameolesid]

"John A. Weeks III" > wrote in message >...
> In article >, WalterM140
> > wrote:
>
> > >http://www.startribune.com/stories/1631/4837686.html
> > >
> >
> > Heard a thing like this a few years ago; they thought they were landing in
> > Amsterdam, turned out to be Frankfort, as I recall.
>
> They did this about a decade ago with one of the smaller planes,
> either a 727 or DC-9. The crew landed at the Wausau, Wisconsin,
>

This is not an uncommon situation in the airline world. A 737 landed
at Cabaniss field instead of CRP a few years ago... That was a little
like this last incident. The crew popped out of the overcast and there
was a runway lined up in front of them....A check airman did that one
I understand... And not one, but two, EMB-120s landed at Sulphur
instead of Lake Charles just weeks apart. Both were from the same
airline.