Southwest Airlines flight lands at wrong airport

They can get it out of there easy enough, but it won't be a "noise-abatement procedure" departure to be sure! Empty and about 1 hour fuel onboard, it will jump right off the ground.

I'm guessing SWA is looking for a couple new pilots to replace this crew now...
 
The plane, Flight 4103, departed from Chicago, reported NBC. The Boeing 737-700 had 124 passengers on board and a five-person crew. An investigation is underway into how the wrong landing happened.

...they have 3700 feet to work with
 
Badger said:
...they have 3700 feet to work with
Click to expand...

And, if they landed on 12, which is possible considering the winds we've had today, and didn't get it stopped, it's straight down, about 50' or 60' (or more) to hwy 65, the main four lane serving Branson.

That would not have been pretty.
 
airguy said:
They can get it out of there easy enough, but it won't be a "noise-abatement procedure" departure to be sure!
Click to expand...

It's Branson. A spur-of-the-moment hearing aid recall in the area takes care of that.
 
Last edited:
When this occurs, what happens to the crew? Beyond suffering all of the hazing from the other pilots, what will SWA management do? Is this a career killer?
 
I'm sorry, but when you suddenly realize that you are about to land a 737 on a 100'x3700' runway...at what point does a go around not seem like a good idea?
 
AggieMike88 said:
When this occurs, what happens to the crew? Beyond suffering all of the hazing from the other pilots, what will SWA management do? Is this a career killer?
Click to expand...

Crew is probably asking about happy hour, free new papers and crew hotel rates on the field :).
Not good for them. I'll ask around; it's been different over the years. Real sensitive stuff now and could have lead to a lot of damage and possible loss of life. Wonder what procedures they used to verify airport. I'm kind of paranoid about triple checking when going somewhere I'm not familiar. Someone should have been in there before. Wonder if they were on an approach and broke out over the other field visually; just brought it in visually instead of staying on the approach.

Best,

Dave
 
I suspect it was pretty severe clear at Branson all day today. It was here.

Yeah, I just checked, not a cloud in the sky since 9:45 yesterday morning.
 
Oops! If clear, they still could have had the approach dialed in and just not verified when they saw it. Was it in their flight path on the way to the other airport? If coming from the north, sounds like it probably was. The may have just seen it right in their path and not confirmed. It's happened before.

Best,

Dave
 
I think I could understand mixing up close, similar airports in a small plane. But in THAT? And unnoticed all the way until committed to land?
 
Airlines are doing a lot to have procedures that avoid this. Crews are composed of people. Distractions, tired crew, life distraction, laziness all figures in, but it doesn't happen often in light of all the flights that occur each day. The press naturally focuses on each of these and it's big news.

Of course, this could have been VERY bad.

As is said, if one uses superior judgement, they won't have to display their superior piloting skills.

Best,

Dave
 
i find it funny that this happens pretty regularly and people still are amazed by it
 
Hmmmm....they don't look all that confusingly similar...upper left where they landed, lower right intended destination...
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    1.1 MB · Views: 154
Think of the swing in emotions by those pilots. Oh cr@p gotta get thing stopped. Damn we stopped it with just the nose over the end: everyone's safe. Well, out of a job!

Best,

Dave
 
I wonder who the radar controller or tower controller was that cleared them to land and if they even bothered looking at where the plane was ?
 
Shawn said:
I'm sorry, but when you suddenly realize that you are about to land a 737 on a 100'x3700' runway...at what point does a go around not seem like a good idea?
Click to expand...


They were....

A. Too drunk to realize it.
B. Too proud to say "this doesn't look right"
C. Too busy looking at their face book account.
D. Had to go to the potty real bad.
 
I can't see how anyone could mistake Taney County for Branson, they must have landed there on purpose to be closer to the strip. Does Taney County still belong to College of the Ozarks?
 
Art VanDelay said:
I wonder who the radar controller or tower controller was that cleared them to land and if they even bothered looking at where the plane was ?
Click to expand...
I was wondering similar. It doesn't sound like the tower even looked out the window, and I guess they don't have radar in the cab.

Branson's one of those sleepy airports that really doesn't need a tower.

And Henning, Point Lookout (as that airport will always be known to "locals") is no longer owned by the college. Hence the name change.
 
I posted this on the other thread discussing this but it looks like this thread is more active.

Oooopps...... Well at least someone will get to practice their short field takeoff's in a 737! That's pretty impressive flying by the pilot though to land and stop a 737 in 3800 ft of runway. That has to be somewhere around the minimum runway needed established for a 737.

At least the bags fly free....to bad now everyone on that plane has to pay to get their bags to the correct airport!
 
Here is a -800 landing at Santos Dumont Rwy Length 4341'.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AStXzoAreQQ&desktop_uri=/watch?v=AStXzoAreQQ

Another landing from inside on a wet runway...

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XLUx1oEN00c&desktop_uri=/watch?v=XLUx1oEN00c

Since their first flight was Mar 9, 2013, I am sure all of their pilots had not flown into Branson yet. This one was 737-7H4, N272WN, Flight SWA4013. They seemed to get stopped pretty good with carbon/anti-lock brakes. I think I would have to just sit in the cockpit with the door closed while my passengers deplaned. Glad the runway was dry although dark.

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA4013/history/20140112/2145Z/KMDW/KBBG
 
Last edited:
Well, one good thing, since it was Branson, I'm sure there were plenty of tour busses available to move them all to the right airport. :)
 
NO SAFETY/OVERRUN AREAS AT RY ENDS-LARGE DROP-OFFS. STEEP TERRAIN GRADIENTS ALONG RY PVMT EDGES

No tower there, but at 6 nm, they'd been under the "control" of the intended airport tower.
 
You know there's one other possible reason for the diversion. It may not have been pilot error.

The "old folks" passengers were hungry and hijacked the plane. There's a Sunday buffet at the Point Lookout restaurant adjacent to the airfield.

There's nothing like this over at Branson Regional.

The Branson jokes could go on for weeks.

:goofy:
 
Last edited:
They didn't want to miss their T time at the golf course up the street. They will have plenty of time to play now.
 
In addition to Southwest who else will investigate this -- NTSB or FAA? No one was injured, no damage to the plane or property. It would be classified by the FAA as an incident rather than an accident, and as such would not be referred to the NTSB. So . . .

It really would be useful to know what actually caused the misque.
 
Last edited:
Well, borrowing from another thread, looks like there are at least two airline pilots who are overpaid.
 
Having been in a similar situation many years ago, I refuse to cast stones. In my case, however, we caught the error and didn't have the embarrassment of landing at the wrong place.
 
Hey Greg, like you I don't want to cast stones but would like to understand better how they make mistakes like that.
 
It's not that difficult to spot a beacon or a runway you think is the correct airport and go for it only to find out that you were wrong. I've never landed at the wrong airport but I've had moments of confusion. Since I now fly an airplane which is capable of it, we usually set up the course to the runway and a magenta line if the runway doesn't have a straight-in approach. Even if we are not really following it, it gives you more situational awareness.
 
I almost landed at the whirlpool factory north of KEVV one night. In spite of the GPS saying I had 4 miles to go the white and blue lights in the factory parking lot were VERY compelling. I was 800 AGL when I finally said "WTF" and corrected the mistake.

the 737-700 MFD would have showed similar position information in reference to the branson runway. I can only assume that the pilots were heads-up and believed their eyes rather than the nav systems.
 
Everskyward said:
It's not that difficult to spot a beacon or a runway you think is the correct airport and go for it only to find out that you were wrong.
Click to expand...

Yes, but he clearly knew the runway length was short so I think he had to know where he was landing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top