Wrong runway..

[Dangerousdave26]

At Wrong airport.

I always marvel at how these things can happen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25032380

You would think that it would be impossible to do with the equipment that must be installed on that behemoth.

Good luck getting it out of there. They are probably going to have to throw out all the cargo and go light on fuel to take off.

 

[Crusader]

Sorry Dave , didn't notice you had already posted .(not enough coffee) . They did exactly that in Columbus , Oh years ago as noted in my thread . You think the pilot and copilot might have extended holiday season this year ?

Rich



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Toastmaker]

Hmm. . . just a guess, but I'd say their days in the cockpit of a 747 are over.

 

[Spad54]

Interesting piece about the aircraft involved.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20399859

 

[Navy Chief]

I related this story way back, but this thread warrants a retelling of it. When I was on the USS Independence with VA-15, we had a "nugget" pilot who trapped on another carrier's deck by mistake. I think it was the Nimitz, but not certain. Whatever the case, the other carrier was operating in a nearby area. That ship's crew pasted bumper stickers all over his aircraft drop tanks, and gave him a ship's ball cap.

Well......sometime later he finally took off from that carrier, landed back onboard the Indy. I happened to be in VA-15's Ready Room when the pilot walked in. Our skipper told everyone to leave, except that pilot. I had never heard our skipper yell that loud! The a... chewing went on for quite a while. The end of the story was that pilot was immediately transferred from the squadron, flown off the ship, and he resigned his commission. NC

 

[PRB]

Heck, wrong airport too! That 747 is the type that fliger747 drives (I think). I'm sure it wasn't him flying that one, hehe...

 

[Drzook]

I'm thinking all they need to do is bring the fuel down to about 5%, put it waaay back at the end of the runway and hope there's a good stiff headwind. I just tried it with the POSKY DreamLifter. using the real weather there's a 13kt headwind on rwy36 about now. Took most of the runway and the climbout is still scary slow but it worked. Still had full cargo in too.
I feel sorry for the pilots though. Good thing no one got hurt.

 

[fliger747]

I have flown the Dreamlifter into IAB two of the 26 times it has been in there. The company has requested we not comment on this incident. I have a pretty good idea how this happened but cannot comment.

cheers. T

 

[philmoberg]

... using the real weather there's a 13kt headwind on rwy36 about now. Took most of the runway and the climbout is still scary slow but it worked. ...

It appears that's what they just did. My wife had a live feed on her computer, and it looked like didn't have much runway left when the mains lifted off. I was impressed, anyway ...

 

[airattackimages]

They're saying it was off the ground by 5000 feet (runway was 6100). So it did pretty well. Those massive engines sounded gorgeous doing it too.

 

[PRB]

All's well that ends well, as they say. I hope there is no "zero-tolerance for mistakes" mindset at work in this case. Nobody was hurt, and if this was a "first offense" for this crew, an opportunity to learn from a mistake is presented, and I hope they are not canned. Of course there is probably a significant dollar value associated with this "learning experience"...

 

[Skyhawk_310R]

Well, as aviation mistakes go, there are those a heap worse than this one!

It's easier to land on a wrong airport than folks who have not piloted airplanes might realize. The view up there is often a lot different and distances and perspectives change. Put a couple of airports a few miles apart and what appears like an incredible error for those on the ground will, from the air, look mighty tempting!

This mistake happens once about every four or five years, in one form or another. Ultimately, provided the runway is long enough to safely land on, I can live with this mistake pretty well. Other than a heavy dose of humiliation, rarely is there any other negative outcome.

Folks might be surprised at my reaction. I have to say I have not made this mistake in my career, but I've often been overhead a city with multiple airports and had to concentrate really hard to make sure I was seeing the right one! I'm thinking it was also wrong for that Navy squadron commander to deal with his Ensign as he did. That could have been handled as what we call a "learning opportunity" vice a career ender. The way I would have seen it is if the young Ensign would have humbled himself to learn well from the mistake, and showed the mental and moral strength to overcome the humiliation, he would have had the stuff to be a mighty fine Naval aviator. It's easy to destroy a young career. It's a lot harder to build one. The old heads should be in the career building mode. Those of us fortunate enough to go from young buck to old head should always remember the times a thin margin of difference, a bit of mentoring, and a desire of an old head when we were young, were often the margin by which we earned old head status ourselves!

Ken

 

[Ickie]

this happened here in the Tampa area last year. a military big bird thought he was landing at MacDill but managed landing a few miles away in a small airport, it took a few days,to get it back off the ground, lol
poop happens

 

[PRB]

... I'm thinking it was also wrong for that Navy squadron commander to deal with his Ensign as he did. That could have been handled as what we call a "learning opportunity" vice a career ender. The way I would have seen it is if the young Ensign would have humbled himself to learn well from the mistake, and showed the mental and moral strength to overcome the humiliation, he would have had the stuff to be a mighty fine Naval aviator. It's easy to destroy a young career. It's a lot harder to build one. The old heads should be in the career building mode. Those of us fortunate enough to go from young buck to old head should always remember the times a thin margin of difference, a bit of mentoring, and a desire of an old head when we were young, were often the margin by which we earned old head status ourselves! ...

Agree. It's one thing if this aviator had a "history" but if this was a young pilot's first mistake at sea, it's a shame he was treated this way. Even a pilot with 30,000 hours can make a mistake. They should be allowed to be learning opportunities, if possible.

 

[ViperPilot2]

I'm just wondering... with an incident like this, obviously the FAA will investigate as will the folks at Boeing.
Would the NTSB be called in as well, since this was an aircraft "incident", but not an 'accident' in the traditional sense?

Another thing re: the Navy Ensign; Since the Navy invested a substantial amount of time, money and effort to train that Naval Aviator... wouldn't it be more prudent to send him to recurrent training, or re-train him in another discipline?

Thanks for the story, NC... very interesting!

 

[n4gix]

I'm thinking it was also wrong for that Navy squadron commander to deal with his Ensign as he did. That could have been handled as what we call a "learning opportunity" vice a career ender.

Ken, I couldn't possibly agree more with your assessment! In my opinion, this was an example of an incredible waste of potential, not to mention the investment "We the People" had already made in this young man's education...

It's perhaps fortunate that the "squadron commander's" superiors back when he was still a wet-behind-the-ears Ensign were more tolerant, forgiving and encouraging. I'd be really surprised if he'd not done a few bone-headed things himself!

In any case it sure as the devil isn't anything like what I was taught in all my Army "leadership courses..."

 

[Skyhawk_310R]

I'm just wondering... with an incident like this, obviously the FAA will investigate as will the folks at Boeing.
Would the NTSB be called in as well, since this was an aircraft "incident", but not an 'accident' in the traditional sense?

Another thing re: the Navy Ensign; Since the Navy invested a substantial amount of time, money and effort to train that Naval Aviator... wouldn't it be more prudent to send him to recurrent training, or re-train him in another discipline?

Thanks for the story, NC... very interesting!

View attachment 552

The NTSB will lead the investigation. The FAA reserves the right to hand down sanctions if they desire to.

My guess is this comes down to pilot interviews and I'd bet the farm that the pilots will be very open and frank about what happened. At first glance, this strikes me as an honest mistake.

Ken

 

[StormILM]

I listened to the entirety of the ATC/Dreamlifter transmissions(which are compressed and not in real time scale). At the beginning the Dreamlifter (Giant 4241 Heavy) is heard making contact with McConnell Tower and that they are established on RNAV/GPS Approach for Runway 19L with McConnell Tower acknowledging and clearing them to land. The first instance that something is wrong is when the Pilot of Giant 4241 Heavy tells McConnell Tower they would "get back to them shortly, we're not on your approach" followed by McConnell Tower telling them that McConnell field is 9 miles Southeast. Giant 4241 Heavy then responds that they "just landed at the other airport". From there, it was obvious that between the crew of Giant 4241 Heavy nor McConnell Tower, there was considerable confusion over where Giant 4241 Heavy had landed. Initially the crew of Giant 4241 Heavy thought they had landed at Beech Factory Airport(KBEC) but McConnell Tower soon pointed out they were at Jabara Airport instead. The Pilot who was transmitting from Giant 4241 Heavy seemed quite confused at times and fumbled info readback's as well as the Aircraft's callsign several times.

Looking at the sectional, Jabara, Beech, & McConnell are all fairly lined up with each other within a 9.3 nm distance(NE/SW) and with a 1 degree difference in runway headings. It is clear they were using the RNAV/GPS Approach which would be activated in their FMS and I assume the Dreamlifter's are SBAS capable and have FAS Data Block. Is it possible they mistakenly selected the RNAV/GPS Approach to Runway 18 at Jabara? If they had correctly selected the RNAV/GPS Approach for 19L at McConnell, certainly they would have seen the disagreement on the ND & G/S? I'm in zero doubt about this being Pilot Error but with the noticeable significant confusion displayed by the Pilot on Coms, it makes me wonder if there were other mitigating factors that distracted normal cockpit flows?

 

[ViperPilot2]

The NTSB will lead the investigation. The FAA reserves the right to hand down sanctions if they desire to.

My guess is this comes down to pilot interviews and I'd bet the farm that the pilots will be very open and frank about what happened. At first glance, this strikes me as an honest mistake.

Ken

Thanks for the response, Ken! Just wasn't sure about the SOP for that; time will tell.

 

[napamule]

Who's On First..?

Right. It was the pilot that got 'confused', and it was dark (9:30 pm), and since Jabara comes before McConnell when approaching from the North, he picked the first one (Jabara) and landed there-that's all that happened. It was the wrong airport. But the landing had to be a good one-only 6100 ft of runway. (I used the 747 8i Experimental and took off from Jabara with full load- barely made it). Yeah, his 'career' is over, as it could of been tragic.
Chuck B
Napamule