Southwest Pilot lands at wrong airport

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!
 
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I thought most of the commercial always fly an approach? I could see me doing this VFR, but IFR?
 
A couple things in their favor is a displaced threshold of 300' at each end.
 
"Where are you?"

"I'm standing right outside the terminal, where are you?"

"I'm right here but I don't see you...." :dunno:
 
A lot of "derp" going on with this one.

I've landed at Point Lookout before, and there's no way you can confuse it with Branson's big new airport... even at night... if you've got at least a few brain cells working and paying half attention to what you're doing. The ground layout is totally different between the two airports, and even the runways are different numbers.
 
I found a transcript of the cockpit voice recorder already. Those NTSB guys work fast these days:

18:00:00 PIC "Roger, Roger."
18:06:00 RDO-1 "What's our vector, Victor?"
18:10:00 COP "What's our clearance, Clarance?"
18:11:00 CAM [Sound of tortured brakes]
 
teethdoc said:
I thought most of the commercial always fly an approach? I could see me doing this VFR, but IFR?
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since it was a clear day, they probably were assigned a visual approach and spotted the wrong airport. airlines usually back up the visual approach with the ILS frequency, which the crew probably didnt do in this case
 
jordane93 said:
since it was a clear day, they probably were assigned a visual approach and spotted the wrong airport. airlines usually back up the visual approach with the ILS frequency, which the crew probably didnt do in this case
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If he was landing 14 there is no ILS. The ILS is on 32 at Branson.
 
If the runways had the same headings and were of comparable length it might be understandable. But this is really weird. :nonod:

(Am I the only guy who punches "Direct to" when getting handed off for a visual??)
 
Even simple Foreflight would have showed him he's not quite at the right airport.. What happens to a Pilot when this happens? Are you automatically banned from flying commercial again? Do you get a little spanking and move on?
 
marcoseddi said:
Even simple Foreflight would have showed him he's not quite at the right airport.. What happens to a Pilot when this happens? Are you automatically banned from flying commercial again? Do you get a little spanking and move on?
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Depends on what the investigation digs up. Typically temporarily suspended, remedial training and then back to flying.

IIRC, the Delta guys that landed the 76 on a taxiway at ATL were back flying within 6 months.
 
Wait a sec... that's a 737 on a 3700ft runway? goodness. Forget the the rest of the story, I'm impressed.
 
Oh, stuff happening! They just pushed it out from it's corner of the ramp.
 
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marcoseddi said:
Even simple Foreflight would have showed him he's not quite at the right airport..
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It's not so simple. I believe Part 121 carriers can't have their location displayed on a moving map on a non-approved device (AC 20-159), so using ForeFlight in the cockpit with the plane position depicted would be against the rules.
 
Dang, I clicked on it just in time to see it off in the horizon.
 
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