In November 2013 an Atlas Air Dreamlifter destined for McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita set down instead at Col. James Jabara Airport, eight miles to the north. The runway at Jabara is 6,101 feet long, plenty big for general aviation equipment, but a tight squeeze for the Boeing 747 freighter. The surprised pilots had expected to find themselves on McConnell’s 12,000-foot runway.
Investigations were undertaken. Conjecture about what might have happened was published and broadcast across the nation. And just as the hubbub was starting to die down, in January 2014 a Southwest 737 traveling from Chicago to Branson, Missouri, landed six miles short of its intended destination on the 3,738-foot runway of M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport. The runway the crew was expecting to set down on in Branson is 7,100 feet long. As you can imagine, heavy braking was required to bring the transport category aircraft to a stop before pavement gave way to grass and rougher terrain.
Both aircraft were making visual approaches to an airport they believed they had identified correctly. It wasn’t until they touched down that their mistake became evident.
The question lingers, however: How does a proficient, professional flight crew land at the wrong airport? And why does it keep happening? The answer is disturbingly short and sweet. They do it, and it keeps happening, because it’s a relatively easy mistake to make. It’s also a mistake that’s fairly easy to avoid, so let’s consider two other instances in which pilots landed at the wrong airport, and see what led them to misidentify the field until it was too late.
General aviators make mistakes, too. A retired airline captain interviewed for this story, who chose to remain anonymous, told the tale of landing at the wrong airport in south Florida early in his career. He was flying a Piper Aztec while attending college and building time toward flying for the airlines. He was to pick up a passenger in south Florida and return him to Tallahassee, in the northwestern panhandle of the state. He recalled the details of the flight clearly, as if the nearly 40 years that have passed between that day and this were no factor.
“I was cleared to land on Runway 27,” he remembered. “I just drove in and landed—then realized it was the wrong 27.”
The mistake is easier to make than one might imagine. The east coast of south Florida is festooned with airports, nearly all of which have east/west runways to accommodate the prevailing wind off the Atlantic Ocean. As the pilot explained his mistake in retrospect, he brought up that exact point. “It [the airport] had east/west runways, like everything does down there.”
In his case, he was simply not paying attention as closely as he should have been and failed to pick up on the subtle clues that would have helped him identify the correct airport with east/west runways, rather than just any airport with east/west runways.
“It was a real clear day,” he stipulated. “That’s when these things happen.”
We all make mistakes. I can attest to that because I too have landed at the wrong airport. Yes, it’s true. I once put the wheels of a Piper Cherokee down on a runway other than the one on which I had intended to land. So I know firsthand that it’s an easy mistake to make. I was flying with a private pilot who hadn’t flown in 17 years. He was doing what amounted to a very long flight review. Not much different than starting from scratch, really. The problem was my client was convinced that he only needed to brush up a bit when he actually needed to learn, or re-learn a significant number of skills, maneuvers, and terms that were not currently in his mental or physical tool bag.
After several hours of review flights, I assigned my fellow pilot a cross-country that included four stops, three of which neither of us had ever flown to before. Rather than plan the cross-country as I’d taught him to, he simply wrote the names and frequencies of various VORs on index cards, with notes for which radial would take him to his destination. Unshaken by my warnings that this was not an appropriate method of planning a cross-country flight, I decided to let him fly and learn for himself why planning is important. That was a poor decision on my part.
My client was completely lost before we got to the first destination, yet he insisted we push on to the planned second stop. I foolishly agreed. Halfway there the customer was so confused and frustrated he could no longer fly the airplane. I took the controls and did my best to calm him as I navigated without an appropriate flight plan or navigation log to reference. When my destination came into sight, I contacted Boston Center, cancelled flight following, and contacted the tower. They cleared me for a straight-in approach.
I should have known something was wrong when I reported a one-mile final and the tower said they didn’t have me in sight, but I pressed on. Little did I know I was landing at an airport with the same runway alignment that lay several miles short of my actual destination, on the same VOR radial.
Why does this keep happening? Thankfully, none of the four incidents outlined here resulted in injuries, bent metal, or a collision with opposing traffic in flight. They are all serious breaches of the PIC’s responsibility, however. That is just as true in my case as it is with the others.
Our anonymous pilot distills the issue down to its essence. “This happens because the pilots get distracted.” True enough.
Distraction is a serious issue in flight. The Private Pilot Practical Test Standards actually include a sentence that reads, “Numerous studies indicate that many accidents have occurred when the pilot has been distracted during critical phases of flight.” It is fair to categorize landing as a critical phase of flight. And when the airplane comes to a stop on the right runway, at the wrong airport, it is very difficult for a pilot to assert he or she was not adversely affected by distraction.
I was distracted by an overwrought student and my own concern over the insufficient planning that went into my flight. Our anonymous pilot was distracted by the fact that he had sighted a runway that had the same identifying number as the runway he had been assigned. The Atlas and Southwest pilots were distracted by seeing an airport that wasn’t quite where they expected it to be, but it was close enough that they assumed it must be their destination.
Mistakes happen, but we can take steps to prevent those mistakes. In fact, we have a responsibility to take proactive steps to prevent mistakes. That is part of what being PIC is all about.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Fortunately, preventing a truly embarrassing and potentially dangerous mistake is not hard. We have the tools and we have the training. Our challenge is to simply put those tools and that training to work.
Look for visual cues. Runway orientation isn’t the only indicator we should use for identifying an airport on a visual approach. Look for nearby landmarks that will help distinguish this Runway 27 from any other Runway 27. Is there a highway nearby, or a lake, or a river? Is the airport in the city or is it three miles south? These details will help you put your wheels down where you intended, rather at a nearby field where they didn’t expect you and you don’t want to be.
Use your instruments. Just because you’re on a visual approach doesn’t mean you can’t utilize the navaids available on the field. In congested places like south Florida where there are a half dozen airports with similar runway alignment in the same tight geographical area, you can use the localizer to verify that you’re lined up on the runway you intended to line up on. Even VFR pilots with minimal instrument training can tune in the localizer and watch the needle center as they line up on the assigned runway. If you see the runway ahead of you but the needle is pegged to the left or right, that’s a pretty good indication you’re in the wrong place.
Use your other instruments. GPS has become ubiquitous in the cockpit. Whether it’s in the front office of a wide-body jet or the tight confines of a homebuilt kit, the best navigational equipment known to man will fit in your panel or on your knee without breaking the bank. One of the many benefits of GPS is that it can help you positively identify a specific airport without the need to locate a frequency, tune, and identify it. For pilots who have left these important tasks until they are already in the traffic pattern where their workload increases dramatically, the GPS can be a true lifesaver.
Use your head. The best tool any pilot has at his disposal is the one that rests between the ear pads of the headset. Use your head whenever you fly, whether it’s to an airport you’ve been to many times before, or one you’re arriving at for the first time. Take your time to get set up before you arrive there. Positively identify the field. Use your situational awareness skills to plan the route of flight that will put you in position to join the appropriate traffic pattern or approach as the tower instructs, then verify that approach to be correct. Be on guard to prevent yourself from simply accepting a snap decision that could put you in a position you really don’t want to be in.
Our anonymous pilot remembers his own wrong airport landing and opines, “Your brain gets locked in and you believe a reality that just isn’t there.” In other words, don’t lie to yourself. If the airport isn’t quite where you expected it to be, or the runway configuration is close but not quite right, consider the possibility that it’s not the airport you were destined for. Verify, verify, verify. You’ll be glad you did.
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