A Boeing 747 LCF Dreamlifter was landed at a wrong airport in Kansas, eight miles from the intended destination. The news this morning said that there was no control tower; but I’m unclear if there is no control tower, or just no control tower in operation at that time. (I don’t feel like looking it up.) Fortunately, the runway there is over a mile long and there was no damage to the aircraft or property. Unfortunately, 6,101 is ‘not ideal’ for an aircraft that big. But there’s a bit of good fortune: While the required runway for a 747 to take off at maximum takeoff weight is 10,500 feet by the book (I don’t know about the 747 LCF), the actual distance is much shorter. And this aircraft is not near its MTOW. They had to use a tug to turn it around, but they’ll be able to get out OK.
I have a feeling a couple of pilots might be looking for other employment soon. At the very least, they’re going to be teased mercilessly for a while. I hope they have an Aviation Safety Reporting System form with them so that they can report themselves before the FAA starts enforcement action.
I like a comment on the linked article: ‘Recalculating…’
A number of years ago a 737 almost landed at Whitman airport, a small and then uncontrolled GA airport a few miles from Hollywood/Burbank/Bob Hope (pick a name, any name)
It only an alert ATC that ordered the pilot to abort that prevented it from happening. The pilot called he had the field in sight, but the ATC could not see him.
The engineer didn’t do anything wrong, because they don’t control the route. The dispatcher handling the Zoo Interlocking on the NE Corridor, on the other hand, is probably facing an unpaid vacation.
That happened to me on VIA Rail in Ontario. We should have be going from Sudbury to North Bay, but instead went to Nobel (near Parry Sound), sat about for a while, and backed up to Sudbury.
Just a few miles (or maybe less) from Whiteman (correct spelling) airport is the Junior High school I went to. A few years before I was there, an airplane heading for Hollywood Burbank (might have still been called Lockheed then) landed on the P. E. grounds at that school. Crashed, to be more precise. My father got some pictures of it. One kid on the ground, who was a member of our congregation, got killed. When I was there, the patched parts of the asphalt were still there.
(ETA: This was in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s.)
P. S. How many Dopers know that Hollywood Burbank airport was Amelia Earhart’s home base and point of departure? She lived in that area, and flew from there to (I think) San Francisco, which was her “official” point of departure.
This happened a few years ago as a pilot of a MD-80 was trying to land at LAX and thought little Hawthorne airport was LAX, and commented to the LAX tower that he expected more traffic for such an important airport. He was about ten miles southeast of LAX and was heading for the only east/west runway at Hawthorne (All four runways at LAX are east/west)
He was waved off in time and disaster was averted, as the paving of the runway at Hawthorne was not thick enough to take a loaded MD-80.
