Ping: PilotMan

[DaddyTorgo]

As the resident pilot here, can you shed some light on how this sort of thing could happen??

How can they not you know...realize what they're doing when they get in contact with the tower? Let alone presumably they've flown this route before if they're commercial pilots.

Southwest Airlines plane lands at wrong Missouri airport - CNN.com

[Chief Rum]

My favorite part...

The pilots declined to talk about what happened as they left the plane, Berndt said. The biggest challenge after the aircraft landed, he added, was finding steps for passengers to get off the plane. Steps had to be brought in from Branson Airport, he said, and passengers were delayed by two hours.

I instantly had this image of one of those driveable stair machines being driven slowly down a street from the Branson airport to this other airport to get the passengers off of the plane--maybe with some celebrity at the top of the stair, like you see in movies.

They couldn't just do the whole emergency slide thing?

[Castlerock]

This is an explanation from a similar incident in November.
How a Professional Pilot Could Possibly Land a Giant Plane at the Wrong Airport | Autopia | Wired.com

[PackerFanatic]

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

My favorite part...



I instantly had this image of one of those driveable stair machines being driven slowly down a street from the Branson airport to this other airport to get the passengers off of the plane--maybe with some celebrity at the top of the stair, like you see in movies.

They couldn't just do the whole emergency slide thing?

Watch out for hop-ons

[SnowMan]

Being a former professional pilot, I have zero idea how this happens with today's aviation technology. I can't even speculate.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by SnowMan

Being a former professional pilot, I have zero idea how this happens with today's aviation technology. I can't even speculate.

[PilotMan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

As the resident pilot here, can you shed some light on how this sort of thing could happen??

How can they not you know...realize what they're doing when they get in contact with the tower? Let alone presumably they've flown this route before if they're commercial pilots.

Southwest Airlines plane lands at wrong Missouri airport - CNN.com

There are a couple of thoughts on this that I can add. First off, I really don't know how it happens, but I do know that it does happen, and it clearly happens more often than the news reports.

I can't speak as to whether or not these pilots have ever been to Branson. It's a small airport with only a few flights so it's a good bet that they probably weren't super familiar with the airport or the area.

Second, at a minimum the runway they were supposed to land on should have had some sort of navaid that they could have used to verify their location. The plane should have had some visual references that they weren't landing at the correct airport.

According to Flight Aware the plane was coming in from the east and it looks like they opted for a straight in approach. There were no instrument approaches to this runway except for the GPS which normally wouldn't have been used. So it was probably a visual approach. The flight landed at 6:11 p central time. Branson tower certainly would have still been open and a controller should have noticed that they were not heading the right way. It would have been dark for the most part, both airports have the same rotating beacon which would have identified them as both civilian airports. The identifier for Branson is KBBG while the identifier for Branson West is KFWB. So they aren't even close. Branson West would be to small to be a useful alternate airport so I don't think it was just a matter of the wrong approach plates either.

So what was it?



I don't think that the pilots were very experienced with the airport of the surrounding area. Looking at the route from flight aware it looks like the controller started routing them to land toward the north for a left base to land to the south at Branson (the heavy pink lines on the picture.) I think that the pilots called the airport in sight, but had the wrong airport (remember both have the same rotating beacon like all civilian airports) and proceeded to land where they thought Branson was. It would have been straight ahead of them and aligned on the runway, as opposed to off the left on the other side of the city.

It's just my guess based on observations, I think they just got turned around. There are no other facts that I know of that have been released yet, so I could be way off base.

This is something that does happen. Night flying is very confusing if you are unfamiliar with an area but it's really no excuse for it happening. There were a number of people who could've prevented it from happening. These guys are going to get some very extended time off.

I'm not surprised that it was Southwest, that's really all I'll say about that. But if you google the probable causes of Burbank, Midway, and LGA you'll see what I'm talking about.

Originally Posted by Chief Rum

My favorite part...



I instantly had this image of one of those driveable stair machines being driven slowly down a street from the Branson airport to this other airport to get the passengers off of the plane--maybe with some celebrity at the top of the stair, like you see in movies.

They couldn't just do the whole emergency slide thing?

It costs in the neighborhood of $10,000 to blow one of those slides. The probability of someone getting hurt is really high. The plane would need maintenance and it wouldn't be back in service costing even more.

I saw it got out today and was back in service this afternoon. It's just not worth it from a financial standpoint when you can drive one from Branson in 45 minutes.

[DaddyTorgo]

Cool - thanks PM!

[PilotMan]

Dude, I totally screwed this up. The map up there is way off. I finally got the whole story, I'll try and update it. End result, the pilots were complacent made a mistake that is very common, but very preventable.

I've certainly looked one place and thought I saw what I was supposed to only to be wrong. That's why you set 2 and 3 backups for yourself inside the cockpit to prevent stuff like this happening.