Air Force C-17 mistakes 3500 foot runway for MacDill AFB

mikea

mikea

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Sure, they told US to avoid MacDill but do they?

Air Force officials are trying to figure out why an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III cargo jet heading to MacDill Air Force Base instead landed at Peter O. Knight Airport this afternoon.

The plane, flown by a crew from the 305th Air Mobility Wing at McGuire Air Force Basee in New Jersey, was arriving from Southwest Asia carrying 23 passengers and 19 crew when it made an "unscheduled landing," according to Sgt David Carbajal, a McGuire spokesman. There appears to have been no damage to the aircraft or the airport, said Carbajal.

http://www2.tbo.com/news/news/2012/...argo-plane-lands-at-davis-islands--ar-437276/
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With video of the takeoff. The minimum runway for a C-17 is 3500 feet. The Davis Islands runway is 3580 feet. :yikes: Prolly left a few crew behind.

[Yeah. It's a dupe.]
 
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Can you imagine the knots in the landing pilots stomach when he figured out he just landed at the wrong airport? Now what do you do? He'd not even know the tower freq. he's on the runway, probably can't make the turn off and doesn't have a place to taxi to anyway. Who do you call? You just have to sit there knowing your career is now jacked.
 
C-17 needs only 3000ft of runway to take off with 160,000lb load, so he's good.

Not sure why everyone makes such a big deal out of it.
I seriously doubt it was a mistake. Probably just the news exaggerating as always. Perhaps he had a flight plan filed to MCF and for what ever reason decided to do a landing at TPF without informing abc news.
 
That would be so fun. He should have done a turn a round and got to MacDill and resigned his commission then and saved the taxpayer a bunch of money. I'd fly it out. I've watched it use less runway than my Travelair and I was flying in under 1100', 360hp is 360hp.
 
Captain said:
probably can't make the turn off and doesn't have a place to taxi to anyway.
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As far as I remember the wheelbase is 65ft, so if the taxiways are wide enough he's good. Regarding turning asymmetric thrust and reverse thrust should take care of it.
 
"Lifter one seven heavy, MacDill Tower, not in sight, runway four, wind calm cleared to land."
 
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MachFly said:
and for what ever reason decided to do a landing at TPF
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Sorry, I don't buy it, such a scenario has a very low probability, would have been some sort of emergency and we would have known by now, USAF would have mentioned it in its brief statement.
 
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With thousands of hours flown a year this stuff is going to happen. Look at the runways. Both rwy 4/22 and both airports located near the water at the southern end at almost a peninsula. If the tower controller (if it was even open) doesn't catch the crews mistake then no one will. A C-17 landed gear up in Bagram Afghanistan in 2009. Crew didn't catch it and the tower didn't notice...stuff happens. Happens more than people think also. My bro works ATC in Abilene with Dyess AFB not far away. ABI rwys are 17/35 and DYS 16/34. He's says every now and then they're clear guys for the visual to 17 into ABI but yet the pilot lines up with 16 at DYS. We're human and this kinda thing is gonna keep on happening.
 
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As far as I remember the wheelbase is 65ft, so if the taxiways are wide enough he's good.
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The width isn't usually the problem; it's the runway or taxiway bearing weight ratio. It's a matter of how much weight the runway, taxiway, and ramp will support.

Even where the taxiway or runway is wide enough for the gear, the wings account for a significant additional amount of room that's required. Things one may not consider when arriving in a light airplane, light flag poles by a building or the building itself, become an issue in a large aircraft, especially in tight quarters.

Another issue is jet blast, especially with light aircraft tied down nearby. Turning and powering up or just breakaway thrust to start moving can do significant damage to light airplanes nearby.
 
We had a regional land on the wrong runway the GA/Xwind 4,600' 7/25 instead of 11/29 that's 9,500' a few years back. Not sure what ever came of that.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
http://www.thirdamendment.com/wrongway.html
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Good article. Yeah there's been a bunch of them over the years.

I lived in Jacksonville when I was a kid. It was either '84 or '85 when an F-14 (VF-84) landed at Craig Muni instead of NAS Mayport. The aircraft was doing carrier landings at night and had to divert to Mayport. They mistook CRG for NRB. Both airports in close proximity and both have rwys 5/23. Great oportunity for me to get a close up view of a Jolly Rogers Tomcat so I wasn't complaining!
 
Velocity173 said:
Both rwy 4/22 and both airports located near the water at the southern end at almost a peninsula.
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True, however both runways present vastly different amount of concrete, one is over 3 times longer and 50% wider, I once landed myself at a wrong airport but at least runways were practically identical in every respect and it was at night.
 
olasek said:
True, however both runways present vastly different amount of concrete, one is over 3 times longer and 50% wider, I once landed myself at a wrong airport but at least runways were practically identical in every respect and it was at night.
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Yeah, it would seem they would be able to tell the difference in the runways. I suppose until the Air Force comes out with the results we don't know if it's simple pilot error or they diverted for an emergency. I'm not a C-17 pilot but I don't know of an emergency that would require landing at a 3,500 ft long runway compared to an 11,000 ft runway a few miles away. Either way the crew and aircraft are safe and that's all that matters.
 
You also gotta remember they said they were returning from "Southwest Asia" so they no doubt had been in the seat for a while and were tired and ready to be on the ground.
 
olasek said:
Sorry, I don't buy it, such a scenario has a very low probability, would have been some sort of emergency and we would have known by now, USAF would have mentioned it in its brief statement.
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Have you ever landed or attempted to land on a wrong field? If the answer is "no" then add USAF training, 2nd pilot, and all their avionics, now the possibility of accidently landed on a wring field significantly decreases.

What's wrong with him just wanting to land there? AMC flies into untowered civilian field.
 
DouglasBader said:
The width isn't usually the problem; it's the runway or taxiway bearing weight ratio. It's a matter of how much weight the runway, taxiway, and ramp will support.
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Even if he did damage the runway on landing a bit from the extra weight (which I don't believe he did), C-17s can take off from unpaved fields and rough pavement, tacking off from a slightly damaged runway should not be a problem.

Even where the taxiway or runway is wide enough for the gear, the wings account for a significant additional amount of room that's required. Things one may not consider when arriving in a light airplane, light flag poles by a building or the building itself, become an issue in a large aircraft, especially in tight quarters.
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When was the last time you seen a tall building or a light poll next to a runway?
 
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Jeff Oslick said:
Somehow, I don't think it will just be the CO threatening him with flying rubber dog #### out of Hong Kong, since he's already flying a -17...
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I think that a C-17 is better than what most of us here fly.... :wink2:
 
Did anyone notice the weight bearing capacity for the runway? 20,000 lb single wheel correct? Obviously C-17 is double tandem but I serious doubt that runway was designed to handle its weight.
 
MachFly said:
now the possibility of accidently landed on a wring field significantly decreases.
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It happened many times in civilian aviation with multi-person professional crew so it is not uncommon as you think.
What's wrong with him just wanting to land there? .
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What is wrong is the airport is totally unsuitable for this aircraft (weight, size, etc), you will never convince me the pilot just 'wanted' to land there having a perfect runway just 5 miles away, makes no sense whatsoever, but for emergency landing why not, but there is zero evidence this had anything to do with emergency landing.
 
Velocity173 said:
Did anyone notice the weight bearing capacity for the runway? 20,000 lb single wheel correct? Obviously C-17 is double tandem but I serious doubt that runway was designed to handle its weight.
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What tire pressure does the C-17 carry? That tells you the PSI load on the runway. I was talking to my great uncle the other day and related that the folks place was right down the bay and he recalled it was where the AAF sent him for basic flight training.
 
Not sure? I just thought at 20 grand single wheel would be close for a C-17. If they flew from overseas though they were probably pretty light. It looks like the runway held up OK. If that runway had a PCN it must just barely be above a C-17's ACN.
 
Seems to me that those Air Force guys have GPS and other fancy nav equipment. I would think that they'd have to turn them all off to succeed in making the mistake of actually landing at the wrong airport. Waiting for more info on this one.
 
jstro said:
Seems to me that those Air Force guys have GPS and other fancy nav equipment. I would think that they'd have to turn them all off to succeed in making the mistake of actually landing at the wrong airport. Waiting for more info on this one.
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You'd think so but as Capt Thorpe's article shows, there are plenty of examples of aircraft equipped with advanced avionics that still landed at the wrong place. I flew with a guy (UH60) in Iraq who shot an approach 1.5 K short of our destination because he could swear it was the LZ. We were basically getting ready to land in some dudes back yard. Hilarious! Got it on film and everything. A lot of times once we see what we perceive as the destination, we disregard other references. If that's what happened in this case I can't fault these guys. When you're tired from flying all day sometimes even the routine can be a struggle.
 
Velocity173 said:
You'd think so but as Capt Thorpe's article shows, there are plenty of examples of aircraft equipped with advanced avionics that still landed at the wrong place. I flew with a guy (UH60) in Iraq who shot an approach 1.5 K short of our destination because he could swear it was the LZ. We were basically getting ready to land in some dudes back yard. Hilarious! Got it on film and everything. A lot of times once we see what we perceive as the destination, we disregard other references. If that's what happened in this case I can't fault these guys. When you're tired from flying all day sometimes even the routine can be a struggle.
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I missed the article, I'll go back and read it. On one hand it's surprising, but after reading a lot of accidents reports I suppose you are right -- all the avionics in the world aren't a replacement for good judgement and a sharp mind.
 
jstro said:
I would think that they'd have to turn them all off to succeed in making the mistake of actually landing at the wrong airport.
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Turning off in unnecessary, it is enough to stop paying attention to the instruments. This is what happened in Poland couple of years ago when some low cost Turkish 737 landed at a military airfield instead of at nearby ciivilian airport. Similar thing happened to some Westjet 737 pilot in western Canada fairly recently.
 
Does anyone happen to have a picture that was tacked of a runway after a heavy airplane landed there?
How much damage can there possibly be?





olasek said:
It happened many times in civilian aviation with multi-person professional crew so it is not uncommon as you think.
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I understand that it happens occasionally, but I just don't believe that this is one of those cases.
 
Didn't a town sue the White House for damages to the runway at their local airport when Air Force One landed there for a campaign stop? The strength of the runway is probably closely related to its former use. If built as a Military runway then converted to civil use, it will be a lot stronger than one built for small GA aircraft.
Pease and Brunswick come to mind as great examples of runways capable of handling large aircraft that are now civilian. Hanscom is still joint use and has some pretty good sized aircraft there from time to time. So. Weymouth NAS would have also been a great place. I don't recall seeing anything bigger than a P3 or a 727 there (unless you count the blimps), but at 7,000', I'm sure they could take almost anything.
There was an old defunct airport along the coast of Rhode Island, maybe 15 miles from Westerly that, even though the runways were X'd out, still saw a fair share of Westerly arrivals. During my training in the mid 90s, my instructor warned me about mistaking it as Westerly. It was even on the sectionals as a landmark.
It can happen to anyone. Better chance after a long flight.
 
olasek said:
But I do, could bet my house on it, all evidence points to it.
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What evidence? The only fact we know is a C-17 landed at an untowered field and took off sometime later, that doesn't really say much.
 
MachFly said:
What evidence? The only fact we know is a C-17 landed at an untowered field and took off sometime later, that doesn't really say much.
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We know USAF is investigating - clearly they are surprised too.
So far there is no info of any possible emergency which would be the ONLY thing that could explain it.
 
olasek said:
We know USAF is investigating - clearly they are surprised too.
So far there is no info of any possible emergency which would be the ONLY thing that could explain it.
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That information comes from the news, I wouldn't call that a reliable source. News will say what ever it takes to make the story interesting as long what they say it somewhat close to the truth and is believable by most people.
 
MachFly said:
That information comes from the news, I wouldn't call that a reliable source. News will say what ever it takes to make the story interesting as long what they say it somewhat close to the truth and is believable by most people.
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Let me ask you because you write like a guy who never sat behind controls of any aircraft, what would be a reason for a military C-17 returning from Asia to land at a small general aviation airport where there is barely enough runway to stop (they had 10 ft to spare) if you have 3 times longer military runway 2 minutes away? If you come up with a reasonable answer I will pass otherwise what you write is an utter rubbish to me, sorry.
 
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olasek said:
Let me ask you because you write like a guy who never sat behind controls of any aircraft, what would be a reason for a military C-17 returning from Asia to land at a small general aviation airport where there is barely enough runway to stop (they had 10 ft to spare) if you have 3 times longer runway 2 minutes away? If you come up with a reasonable answer I will pass otherwise what you write is an utter rubbish to me, sorry.
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LOL, Okay.
I've actually done some training in the C-17 and I know that it can take off in 3000ft while carrying 160,000lb of load. If what the news says is true regarding him coming in from asia and having only 42 people on board then he was definitely bellow that weight.
The runway there has extra 400ft, which is plenty. If you look at the video of him tacking off from there you'll see that he took off with plenty of pavement to spare.
As far as why he landed there I don't know, the Air Force didn't tell me and unlike the news I try to not come up with random explanations. What I can tell you is that AMC does fly into small fields, so this occurrence is nothing special.
 
The TPA spokesperson speaking for TPF said the aircraft was inbound for MCF. This leaves only one explanation. The aircraft was coming in from the east because of the Asia transatlantic, they ran out of duty day while on final and chose to land rwy 22 at TPF so as not to bust duty day. This would explain why a different crew flew it out later in the day. Thank you.
 
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