Oops! Boeing cargo jet lands at wrong Wichita airport
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/travel/kansas-cargo-plane-wrong-airport/
Have you ever done this? Not in an emergency but just mistaken the runway for another field.
I've landed at the right airport only to have a passenger come up and say "we forgot to tell you, we don't want to go here anymore, we want to go to ....."
Oops! Boeing cargo jet lands at wrong Wichita airport
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/21/travel/kansas-cargo-plane-wrong-airport/
Have you ever done this? Not in an emergency but just mistaken the runway for another field.
No, but when I did my night cross country for my PPL, it was not easy to figure out which airport was which when the plane had no nav instruments. Flying strictly by pilotage and dead reckoning at night, it would be easy to end up at the wrong airport. I ended up clicking the mic button to turn on the lights of the various airports to figure out which one was which, according to its CTAF frequency.
Thank goodness for GPS.
I watched a CFI and a student do several T&Gs with out talking on the radio. There were several planes in the pattern. We could not figure out what was going on so I wrote down his N number and called the flight school it was assigned to. The CFI was announcing on the wrong freq because he thought he was at a different airport!
True story.
re. the problem of distinguishing airports at night, I've always wondered why aviation didn't adopt for beacons the trick used for lighthouses. Before GPS, a ship could find its position at night along a shoreline by noting the timing of the flashing light. Each lighthouse has a different period for the flashing. I always though airport beacons should do the same thing.
I have landed at the wrong airport a number of times, but then I was the CFI and saw it happening well in advance. But I figure what better way to drive the point home to double check your navigation.
I have had the tower trying to find us visually before clearing us to land, when I advised to student to tell them we are at another airport.
I have landed, closed our flight plan and was calling to file our return flight plan when I took the student back outside to read the sign on the building so he could have us actually departing from the correct airport
I landing on the wrong airport twice on one cross country after I failed the GPS. I was trying to drive home the point that the he needed to work on his pilotage. He did a fabulous job of making the point for me.
Brian
I always found the right airport when landing here: