Plane Lands at Air Force Base by Mistake

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=716&e=9&u=/ap/20040620/ap_on_re_us/wrong_airport

<snip>
ST. PAUL, Minn. - A Northwest Airlines flight that was headed to Rapid City, S.D., landed a few miles off course at Ellsworth Air Force Base, and passengers had to wait in the plane for more than three hours while their crew was interrogated.


Passengers on Northwest Flight 1152, an Airbus A-319 from St. Paul, expected to be welcomed to Rapid City Regional Airport on Saturday, but after about five minutes they were told to close their window shades and not look out, said passenger Robert Morrell.


"He (the pilot) hemmed and he hawed and he said 'We have landed at an Air Force base a few miles from the Rapid City airport and now we are going to figure out how we're going to get from here to there,'" Morrell told the St. Paul Pioneer Press by cell phone during the delay Saturday.

Eventually, the captain and first officer were replaced by a different Northwest crew for the short hop to the right airport.

[lectrobyte]

1. the good old days before GPS etc., I could see how this might happen

but these days, it seems pretty impossible.

[mhr]

4. Sometimes Airports Look Remarkably Similar From The Air

However, the pilots should have been in contact with ATC that could have verified their location.

[mike1963]

13. I haven't flown into Rapid city in a few years but FAA radar coverage

used to be pretty spotty out there. A few years ago an airliner landed at McDill in Tampa by mistake (Delta, IIRC)...I never managed to do that, but did land on the wrong runway late one night in Columbus, was
just tired & not paying attention. ;-)

[mhr]

17. Yes I Know, Mistakes Do Happen, I Have A Few Stories As Well

eom

[Kellanved]

6. or the Eastern Jets landing in Berlin-Tempelhof

LOT still has the "Landed ooch in Tempelhof" = "Lands in Tempelhof as well" unofficial by-name.

[Ripley]

2. Creepy...why were the passengers told to close their shades?

What weren't they supposed to see?

What is there to figure out Mr. Idiot Pilot? Take off and land at the right airport, duh.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

10. Ellsworth AFB...

... is home to a B-1 bomber squadron, is still in charge of the missile silos in South Dakota (those that havent been completely decommissioned/blown up) and only DoD knows for sure what else. Remember, that base is "at war" sending B-1 Bombers to Iraq. ;-)

[lumpy]

3. I've heard there is a shortage

coming on of qualified air controlers. Is this a result of on-the-job training such as we have been stuck with in the Bush administration ?

[Ripley]

5. I think it's probably more like a "drunk pilot error" than...

an air controller's mistake.

[October]

25. That was ugly

[Ripley]

31. What?

A drunk pilot, or my comment? Have you been sleeping under a tree for a long time? Drunk pilots are not new and recently when 2 Delta pilots were caught loaded...laughed during their trial and got a minimum sentence.

I don't know what else to make of why they removed the pilots and replaced them with new pilots before the plane traveled on to the other airport "over the hill." They obviously were incapacitated in some way.

I didn't say all pilots were drunk! I just find it hard to believe the air controllers at Ellesworth Air Force Base who are also in control of landings for the civilian base next door...were the ones who screwed up.

[PfcHammer]

7. Don't look out ? WTF. So if I can't see

that I've been flown to the wrong airport, then
it didn't really happen. I see now. Breath test
please.

[peacetalksforall]

8. Close the shades?

At least the admin didn't fly them off to some remote prison.

[Kipper58]

11. Or shoot them down!

let's hope Al-Qaeda never think about attacking that base. How in the hell did a civilian plane manage to land at a B1 Bomber base unchallenged?

[jobycom]

19. That was my thought, too. Some war preparedness.

But the story doesn't really say what the military was doing. They may have been tracking them by that point. Hope so.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

22. All security assets probably over in Iraq keeping us safe from terra.

That is all.

[discordian]

9. doh!!!

In our paranoid times, that's probably a career ender. I wonder if he was intoxicated or just tired. I bet that 5 years ago, he would have just gotten in some trouble with his job and been the butt of many jokes in the pilots lounge for a while.

[IthinkThereforeIAM]

12. I wonder...

... if that pilot was the product of Embry-Riddle or some flight school in Florida. :P

[Paradise]

14. Never to be seen again!

"Eventually, the captain and first officer were replaced by a different Northwest crew for the short hop to the right airport."

[peacebuzzard]

18. Bingo! Pink slip! Yrs ago a DC10 mistook Brussels for Amsterdam

they blamed lack of English comprehension or some other lame excuse. I know at least one (Capt, I think) was fired. "Ladies and gentlemen we have landed in a different country....".
I wonder what failure will receive the finger pointing here. Navigational? Those airbuses are highly sensitive to electronic aides. Maybe too many electronic device interference? Who knows? At least they can't blame flight attendants for this one. O8)

[Paradise]

20. unless there is need for an emergency landing,

imo, it's unthinkable that this could happen! :shrug: but it did!

[Pale_Rider]

15. A few miles off course is probably an understatement ...

Hmmm ... locations seem be more than a few miles off. Any pilots opinions especially with the navigation info for these airports?

Rapid City Regional
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KRAP

Ellsworth AFB
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KRCA

[soup]

33. 6.3 miles according to the calculator at the first link.

Airport distance calculator
From KRCA- Ellsworth Air Force Base
To KRAP- Rapid City Regional Airport

6.3 nautical miles S
Initial true heading: 162


On edit: The runways appear to be oriented the same, as well.

[UpInArms]

16. can't stop myself from posting this one

I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident.

But I was whisked off there, I didn't have much time to think about it. And I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my Chief of Staff, who is sitting over here, walked in and said, "A second plane has hit the tower, America is under attack."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011204-17.html

[burrowowl]

21. It happens quite frequently

of course nowadays, you might be shot down, except happily there are less fighters. In ABQ, they share the same airport. ABQ was once busier than O'Hare given both the civilian and military traffic.

[jmowreader]

23. This is pretty fucking stupid...

Not the part about the pilots exhibiting excessive operator headspace, but the part about holding the plane for three hours at the Air Force base.

Would it not have made more sense to tell the NWA crew, "taxi around to the other end of the runway right now, get your asses out of here, land at Rapid City Regional and we'll get someone there to pick you up for questioning"? Treat it as a straight missed-approach.

[Art_from_Ark]

24. This doesn't pass the smell test with me

1) Aren't there always TWO pilots in a plane? I've often flown NWA, and even the smallest twin-prop knuckle-biters have two pilots. I have a hard time believing that BOTH pilots would not have noticed they were off course-- especially if that was their daily route. I often flew on a very small plane to a very small airport in Arkansas and the pilots ALWAYS found the airport without any trouble, even under heavy fog or cloud cover.

2) Once the plane was off course, surely someone at the AFB and/or Rapid City airport would have noticed and warned the pilots to steer clear.

3) Why was the pilot cleared for landing instead of being redirected to the right airport?

[peacebuzzard]

27. A thought: With all the layoffs, etc, personnel have been shifted around,

those that used to be Cpts on one aircraft have been downgraded to co-pilots on new aircraft, thus, retraining, reorientation, blah blah....take into consideration an overload on duty hours due to lack of personnel now that people are doing their summer travel. So many scenarios, but no excuse. Baffling. But, hey, it can happen! :shrug: But I bet they went in for an immediate drug test.

[mike1963]

28. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but here it is anyway:

a LARGE percentage of current airline pilots (and I use the term advisedly) are little more than slightly-more-trained video game players. I say this from the perspective of a flight instructor since 1965. Most of them know nothing beyond what the manuals say. Yes, they have passed the psychological "tests" and have their FAA tickets, but really have no 'feel' for an airplane. Many are just glorified bus drivers and have never ever had to deal with "unusual attitudes" (which I'm told - I haven't done any instructing for a few years- aren't even taught any more, let alone stalls, spins, etc. all of which ought to be in any sane syllabus)

But back to specifics: They would not have been in contact with the AFB...the military uses UHF frequencies, civil aviation uses VHF (235Mhz vs ~120 Mhz) they would have had no reason to be in communication with them. Radar in that part of the country (FAA radar) is not all that reliable, which is not to say it's bad or anything, it's borderline mountainous and they don't see planes at low altitudes. (There are still areas in the northwest with NO radar coverage.)

As to your last question, I'm pretty sure they WERE "cleared to land" by the tower at KRAP (fun designator)...but that clearance is regularly issued without any visual sighting or knowledge where the aircraft actually is. Hope this helps. ;-)

[Art_from_Ark]

29. I follow your explanation up to a point

but I still have several nagging questions:

First of all, even though regular intraorganization communication might be at different frequencies, why wouldn't an air force base have an emergency civilian VHF frequency on stand-by, just in case? What would they do if they noticed a civilian airliner stray off course and head toward them? Just sit there like bu$h did in the classroom? Especially since 9-11, I don't see how that could happen.

Some of today's small commuter plane pilots might be "glorified bus drivers", as you put it, but I still think that every pilot's goal is getting safely to their destination. How could these guys NOT know they were off course?

Finally, you may remember the old airport at Fayetteville, Arkansas. That was certainly "borderline mountainous", hemmed in, as it were, on three sides by hills. Yet the pilots of those twin-props always found their way, rain or shine, light or dark.

[mike1963]

36. Sorry to be so late replying, I've been away

Yess I'm very familiar with the old FYV airport, flown into there many
times, but there wasn't another similar-looking one nearby. As to the controllers at Ellsworth, I can envision what probably happened...if they weren't working any inbound traffic they most likely weren't really watching all that closely - there generally wouldn't be any real need (ATC-wise, although 'security' considerations might suggest more attention) so the flight just didn't get noticed. It's only a few miles and thus only a few minutes.

When the weather is good (or maybe okay) it's common practice to cancel the IFR (instrument flight rules) clearance/flight plan when the pilot sees the airport (even if it's the wrong one) and continue the approach visually. I don't have my charts here at the house, but I'd be inclined to think both facilities have runwayss going in the same direction (since prevailing winds would obviously be the same.)

[livinginphotographs]

32. As if I needed another reason not to fly....

"a LARGE percentage of current airline pilots (and I use the term advisedly) are little more than slightly-more-trained video game players. "

...there's one more. ;)

[mike1963]

37. Well, it's still true that driving to the airport is more dangerous than

flying...
;-)

[October]

26. Pilot: only job in the world where perfection is the norm

[llmart]

30. And these are the kind of people we want to carry guns?

I feel safer already.

[LiberalBushFan]

34. whew

I flew out from St Paul that same day.

[0007]

35. This story is hard to believe - So an airline pilot can just fly into

any military installation without talking to a real person, 'eh?