A Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago's Midway Airport was scheduled to land at Branson Airport in southwest Missouri on Sunday night. Instead, the Boeing 737-700 touched down at Taney County airport -- about 7 miles away, and with a runway significantly shorter.Back when I was getting my license, there was a general-aviation airport that was ten miles from a SAC base. The runways were aligned the same way. The main runway at the SAC base was about a mile longer and twice as wide and the ramp had B-52s and KC-135s on it, but that didn't stop a couple of pilots a year from landing at it (and being greeted by Air Police with leveled M-16s).
So yes, it happens. If you expect to see an airport and there is one where you expect to see it, it'll take some good mental cross-checking to avoid screwing up like that.
But with two professional pilots and the glass cockpits of airliners these days, well, you'd kind of think that wrong airport landings might be a bit rare than they seem to be.
8 comments:
A student pilot at Tew-Mac, on his long solo, circled down for a landing at JFK. Without any radio contact, of course.
If you draw out a line on the chart from Tew-Mac to New Haven, where he was supposed to go, then extend that line, you'll see he wasn't too far off course. He just must have thought he had a bigger headwind than forecast.
Was he asleep when he flew over LI Sound?
Don't these guys crosscheck the DME in their scan? Don't they do a mental countdown from The IAF? Verify the OM flshed when expected? Going visual far too early to the exclusion of all these other aids, if you ask me!
Air carrier airports are usually lit up a hell of a lot brighter than GA airports, what with the terminal buildings, parking lots, traffic and whatnot.
Branson might be different. And SWA is ending service there, anyway.
Looking at the sectional, an approach from the northwest yields Taney Co. just left of the nose, hard by the town (more lights? It doesn't look like much, but at night...). We know they landed on 12 because Hwy 65 is off the departure end of 12 and that was where the jet would have ended up, according to the news story, if the pilots hadn't go it stopped.
Now, if the Captain is looking while the FO is flying, his scan might more easily pick-up the runway at Taney and jump to a conlusion. He's not checking the instruments, the FO looks up at his call of the field in sight and gets lead right down the primrose path. Just saying...
As a private pilot and experienced jumpseat rider, I'm still confused how they overlooked:
1) The big 12 when they expected to see a big 14
2) The displaced threshold, not present in any similar manner at KBBG
3) The asphalt runway vs. concrete.
That being said, by the time they processed that data, they were likely hard on the brakes and a go around was out of the question.
Branson isn't a huge airport like, say, MDW. They don't even have a parallel taxiway. At night, the markings and runway type probably aren't so apparent.
It's a good thing that nobody was hurt and that no metal was bent. Still, those two guys are done. WN will can them and they'll be lucky if the FAA doesn't yank their certificates.
Comrade, I agree fully with the lighting and noticing the marking/material issue. But I was surprised that the pilot announced arriving at Branson AFTER having to slam the brakes on to stop in time on an asphalt runway with the wrong number, because I gotta think they must have "noticed" the numbers as they flew over one and rolled over the other. But I understand being in a stressful situation and convinced you are somewhere else will make you mentally ignore factors that tell you otherwise, even if there is a little voice in your head saying something ain't right.
Correction: Unlike the story said (my mistake in taking that at face value without considering normal procedure) it was an FA that welcomed the passengers to Branson.
Additional note: Jumpseater in the cockpit, a SWA dispatcher is the first report. The CVR will be enlightening.
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