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The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter hangs out at Paine
Field Airport in Washington. See that aircraft flying above? That should give
you an idea of just how massive a Dreamlifter is. Now imagine that giant
landing unexpectedly on a modest runway.
Plane Landing At The Wrong Airport
How can a plane land at the wrong airport?
BY
"Uh,
ladies and gentlemen, this is the flight deck welcoming you into Wichita. On
behalf of the crew, we'd like to thank you for choosing Airborne Airways, where
your destination is always up in the air.
"You may
now feel free to power up your electronic devices. Um ... in fact, if, uh, any
of you have GPS, we'd like you to join us in a little game. A free bag of
peanuts for the first passenger to tell us, uh, which airport we're at ...
"
It might sound ridiculous,
particularly in the age of GPS satellites, but airplanes do occasionally land
at the wrong airport.
When they do, the consequences
can include not only red-faced pilots, but also inconvenienced passengers,
endangered planes and damaged airfields.
In November 2013, a Boeing 747
Dreamlifter touched down at Col. James Jabara Airport in Wichita, Kan.
Unfortunately for the Atlas Air
crew and for Boeing's production schedule, it was supposed to land at McConnell
Air Force Base about 10 miles (16 kilometers) to the southwest, not at a small,
general aviation field more accustomed to private planes and small business jets.
The mix-up caused no immediate
harm, but it put the plane in a bit of a pickle.
A Dreamlifter is a bloated tick
of an aircraft -- a massive 747-400 modified with 65,000 cubic feet (1,840
cubic meters) of cargo space to haul 787 Dreamliner parts
from global suppliers to assembly line locations.
It has a maximum takeoff
weight of 803,000 pounds (364,000 kilograms).
With its 211.5-foot (64.4-meter)
wingspan, it spreads more than double the width of the runway at Col. Jabara.
Several newspapers reported
concerns that the 6,100-foot (1,860-meter) runway was too short for the massive
plane to take off from.
Ultimately, the plane shed all
unnecessary fuel and took off using only 4,500 feet (1,372 meters) of runway.
The city shut down nearby roads
as a precaution against jet blast, but rubberneckers still managed to cause a
few fender-benders -- the only damage caused by the incident, aside from a few
broken runway lights and some wounded pride.
Getting the runway wrong doesn't
always end so well, however.
In 2006, a Continental Boeing
757 landed on part of a Newark Liberty International Airport taxiway, the
slow-traffic path airplanes take to and from gates. No one was injured, and no
damage to the plane was reported.
Also in 2006, a Comair regional
jet in Lexington, Ky., crashed and burst into flames after running out of room
on the wrong runway. Forty-nine people died, with only the first officer
surviving.
In the last decade, at least
half a dozen such incidents have occurred in the United States alone, thanks to
weather, flight crew errors or blunders by air traffic
control.
To understand why, we need to
look at how pilots land and at how airports are laid out.
The Boeing
Dreamlifter example illustrates one of the most common causes of airport
screwups: namely, two or more airfields lying in close proximity and sharing
similar runway alignments.
Dozens of
airstrips lie scattered across the metropolitan area of Wichita -- the
self-proclaimed "Air Capital of the World," thanks to its strong
aircraft industry presence.
The region
surrounding McConnell Air Force Base alone boasts at least five.
Consequently,
when the Atlas Air pilot got his position wrong, he got it even more wrong than
he realized: He thought the plane had landed at Beech Field, not Col. Jabara.
"Giant
4241 Heavy, do you know which airport you're at?"
"Well we
think we have a pretty good pulse. Let me ask you this ... how many airports...
directly to the south of ... your 1-9 are there?"
The likelihood of mistaken
landings varies according to the landing system used by the pilot.
Under an instrument
landing system (ILS), the pilot or aircraft autoflight
system tracks a set of crosshair signals all the way to the
runway and therefore has little chance of wandering off the beam, provided that
flight plan info is inputted correctly.
On the other hand, pilots using
a visual approach -- in which the crew recognizes the airport
by sight and plots the most practical course and pattern to the runway -- have
more rope with which to hang themselves.
Both types of approach are
common.
Between these two lie a number
of "non-precision" instrument patterns, including the area
navigation (RNAV) system that the Dreamlifter used. RNAV relies
on inertial guidance and/or external course-plotting systems -- such as
navigation satellites (GPS) and older VOR (very high frequency omnidirectional
range) and DME (distance measuring equipment) signals -- to reach the field's
vicinity.
After that, it's up to the
flight crew to sight the strip and land via a visual approach. This, too,
leaves room for mistakes, which is why regulations require crews on visual
approach to run through the checklist that confirms their location.
We won't know the full story on
the Dreamlifter mix-up until the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board
(NTSB) completes its investigation, but we do know that, in Wichita's case, the
confusion has occurred before, especially in bad weather.
In fact, one former Boeing
employee told the Wichita Eagle that the company used to brief pilots about
the problem, although he added that most pilots twigged to the mistake before
landing.
Of course, Wichita isn't the
only city where mistaken landings happen. It's not even the only one where
they've happened multiple times.
KEEPING
'EM HONEST
Following the 2006 Comair
incident, federal regulators and safety experts called for additional pilot
training focused on runway confirmation for takeoff and landing.
Along these same lines,
Honeywell International Inc. and Airbus have developed systems that alert crews
when they have strayed from the assigned path, although the industry has yet to
adopt them widely.
The Boeing
Dreamlifter incident was only one example of landing at the wrong airfield.
Although rare, it happens more often than you might think.
On Jan. 12, 2014, a Southwest
Airlines flight took off from Chicago's Midway International Airport and landed
at Taney County's M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport in Missouri.
The plane was supposed to touch
down at Branson Airport in southwest Missouri, a facility located 8.6 miles
(13.8 kilometers) away.
The National Transportation
Safety Board opened an investigation the following day. Passengers and crew
were all fine, even with the short runway, thanks to some heavy braking.
In July 2012, a huge military
C-17 cargo plane scheduled
to arrive at MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Fla., instead put in at Peter
O. Knight Airport, a small suburban field.
Again, the mistake involved two
neighboring airfields bearing similar runway configurations and, again, fears
were voiced about possible runway damage caused by the beefy craft. Base
officials subsequently implemented new landing procedures.
The previous September, a
Continental Connection flight bound for Lake Charles Regional Airport in
Louisiana landed instead at nearby Southland Field, a strip more accustomed to
handling crop dusters than commercial flights.
Similar incidents occurred at
least twice there in the 1990s, including another Continental Express flight in
1996.
That crew attributed the mistake
to Southland Field's similar compass heading and recently installed bright
lights, and added that the strip they landed on bore the same number as their
assigned Lake Charles runway.
Such incidents occur all around
the globe.
In April 2009, a TAAG Angola
Airlines flight bound for Zambia's Lusaka International Airport landed instead
at an airfield used by the Zambian air force.
The pilot recognized his mistake
but landed anyway to avoid frightening the passengers with a sudden pull-up.
But you don't have to work for
one of the least-safe airlines in the world to commit such a gaffe.
In April 2009, a Turkish
Airlines jet headed for Tbilisi, Georgia, instead put in at a military base 10
miles (16 kilometers) away.
Indeed, 10 miles seems to be a
magic number in these cases.
Col. Jabara Airport is situated
roughly that distance from McConnell Air Force Base; MacDill lies about 5 miles
(8 kilometers) off the end of Peter O.
Knight's runway; Lake Charles
Regional is located about 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) east of Southland.
There are exceptions, of course.
Back in November 2007, the plane carrying then-presidential candidate Barack
Obama landed in Des Moines, Iowa -- 100 miles (161 kilometers) from its
scheduled stop in Cedar Rapids.
Maybe the pilot thought he'd
like to be a few months early for the Iowa caucuses.
WHO
CONTROLS THE CONTROLLERS?
In 1995, a Frankfurt-bound DC-10
landed in Brussels after air traffic controllers received and conveyed the
wrong flight information.
Given the complexities of
approaches in packed European airspace, the pilots did not suspect they were
being led astray until they had nearly arrived in the Belgian capital.
By then, they were low enough on
fuel that they opted to land despite being 189 miles (304 kilometers) and one
country from their intended destination.
Lots
More Information
Author's
Note: How can a plane land at the wrong airport?
I
sometimes think that we are surprised by stories like these only because we
vastly overestimate the people and machines with which we entrust out lives.
Each
year, roughly 4,000 American patients are left with surgical souvenirs on the
wrong side of their sutures -- usually sponges, but occasionally clamps,
scalpels or scissors.
Are
surgical staffs incompetent? Far from it; but, like pilots, they perform a
complex and occasionally chaotic task, often while fatigued.
While
it might be easier in the short term to imagine ourselves safe in the hands of
experts, maybe from time to time we should just face the uncomfortable fact
that we are rolling the dice.
And why not? The odds are generally in our favor, even if today's surgeon or pilot is yesterday's college roommate -- you know, the one who drank a lot and never studied ...
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