"Confused pilot lands at wrong Kansas airport; Kansas airfields are said to have similar runways" by Roxana Hegemanand Joshua Freed | Associated Press, November 22, 2013
WICHITA, Kan. — Moments after touching down, the pilot of a cargo-hauling jumbo jet seemed confused in his exchanges with air traffic controllers who had guided his Boeing 747 toward a Kansas Air Force base.
When puzzled controllers told the pilot that he was 9 miles north of his intended destination, he made an unusual admission. ‘‘Uh, yes sir, we just landed at the other airport.’’
His calm, understated response belied the danger of the situation: A mammoth aircraft had just landed on the wrong stretch of concrete, miles from its planned path, in the dark. The runway just happened to be long enough.
As he tried to sort out the situation over the radio, the pilot could be heard mixing up east and west in his notes, acknowledging he could not read his own handwriting and getting distracted from the conversation by ‘‘looking at something else.’’
The 747, flown by a two-person crew with no passengers, intended to touch down late Wednesday at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, where it was supposed to deliver parts for Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner to a nearby company that makes large sections of the next-generation jet.
Instead, the cargo plane landed to the north, at the smaller Colonel James Jabara Airport.
The jet took off again Thursday and within minutes landed at its original destination.
The crew had flown into an area where there are three airports with similar runway configurations: the Air Force base, the Jabara airfield, and a third facility in between called Beech Airport.
That could help explain the mistake. Pilots also say it can be tough to tell a long runway from a shorter one on final approach. And Jabara is directly on the path toward McConnell, so the only difference would be that a pilot on final approach would reach it a little sooner.
While it’s rare for a pilot to land at the wrong airport, occasional confusion is not unusual.
Yeah, this is no big deal?
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Boeing Co. owns the plane involved in the mistaken landing, but it’s operated by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, a New York company that provides crews or planes to companies.
An Atlas Air spokeswoman declined to answer questions and referred inquiries to Boeing.
Boeing spokesman Doug Alder said the company would be consulting with Atlas to ‘‘find out exactly what happened so that it doesn’t happen again.’’
The Federal Aviation Administration planned to investigate whether the pilot followed controllers’ instructions or violated any regulations.
The modified 747 is one of a fleet of four that hauls parts around the world to make the Dreamliner.
That damn thing is cursed. I guess that's what happens when you skimp on costs and materials to boost profits.
Known as the ‘‘Dreamlifter,’’ it features an expanded body to carry whole fuselage sections and other large parts. If a regular 747 with its bulbous double-decker nose looks like a snake, the overstuffed Dreamlifter looks like a snake that swallowed a rat.
According to flight-tracking service FlightAware, this particular Dreamlifter has been shuttling between Kansas and Italy, where the center fuselage section and part of the tail of the 787 are made.
Spirit AeroSystems, which is next to McConnell, completes the sections and sends them to Boeing plants in Washington state and South Carolina for assembly into finished jets.
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