Wrong airports

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asgcpa

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Is it me, or are other noticing an increase in commercial planes landing at the wrong airports. In the last month if I can recall there have been 2 - one in Kansas and this last one in MO.

What is going?
 
asgcpa said:
What is going?
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Plate tectonics.

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Foreflight indicated that runway to be 3700 feet if I recall what I looked up this morning. There are also no precision approaches available.

I am not accustomed to the type of flying and tower work involved with this sort of flying. Would the tower also have some culpability in this?

Where they were supposed to land is class D, so would it be proper for the controller their to give permission to land without at least having them in sight? I realize that class D has no radar and might have nothing more than binoculars, a radio and a telephone, but shouldn't they have given permission?

Edit: I am at the office and only have my IPhone with Foreflight. I'm more accustomed to looking up data on my IPad FF version. There it is easy to get the AFD. I was going to look up the KBBG tower hours. Looks like I need to educate myself a little on the IPhone FF.

I don't know when this happened, but I assume last night, so the KBBG class D tower might have been closed.

Sorry for the rambling, just thinking out loud.
 
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There was a period back a dozen years ago when we had a string of guys flying EAS airline service especially at night landing at the wrong airport. Clicked up the lights on the CTAF and headed for the one that lit up.
 
MBDiagMan said:
Foreflight indicated that runway to be 3700 feet if I recall what I looked up this morning. There are also no precision approaches available.

I am not accustomed to the type of flying and tower work involved with this sort of flying. Would the tower also have some culpability in this?
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One article stated no staffed tower at either field, but charts show tower (Class D) at the intended airport.
 
I don't fly away from home very far, but the class D towers in my area usually go unmanned about 5 PM.
 
asgcpa said:
Is it me, or are other noticing an increase in commercial planes landing at the wrong airports. In the last month if I can recall there have been 2 - one in Kansas and this last one in MO.

What is going?
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Probability and Statistics.

I see that while other posters blame liberals and Fox news in previous posts, the fact is that any "random" event is going to happen at irregular intervals - you will have a period where none happen, then you will appear to get a bunch. You can't expect random events to happen at regular intervals.

If you flip a coin and get heads 5 times in a row, what are the odds that you will get heads next time? 50/50
 
The AFD shows tower hours as 1300 to 0300Z. Anyone know what time the aircraft landed?

As far as stick and rudder skills, maybe the pilot did okay with that part of it. 3,738' x 100' for a 737 sounds like he stuck it in there pretty good. Wonder what it will take to get it out? With those two big engines, you would think that they could back it up as far as they could and it would stand on it's tail gettin' outta there.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Probability and Statistics.

I see that while other posters blame liberals and Fox news in previous posts, the fact is that any "random" event is going to happen at irregular intervals - you will have a period where none happen, then you will appear to get a bunch. You can't expect random events to happen at regular intervals.

If you flip a coin and get heads 5 times in a row, what are the odds that you will get heads next time? 50/50
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Yeah, things seem to come in waves. Seems that you go through some periods of seeing several airline accidents, and then sail along for quite awhile with none of them happening.

I'm like Geoff, I can't imagine anything changing that could be causing this to start happening all of a sudden.
 
MBDiagMan said:
The AFD shows tower hours as 1300 to 0300Z. Anyone know what time the aircraft landed?
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Around 6:11 PM. Sunset was about a quarter after 5PM so it was getting dark. The control tower is supposed to operate from 7am to 9pm local time, no mention of different hours for weekends, so it should've been open at the time of the errant landing.
 
Neal Howard said:
Around 6:11 PM. Sunset was about a quarter after 5PM so it was getting dark. The control tower is supposed to operate from 7am to 9pm local time, no mention of different hours for weekends, so it should've been open at the time of the errant landing.
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I hate landing at "almost dark" That's when I have the hardest time finding the runway, but like I stated in another post, I thought these big jets always flew a precision approach.
 
MBDiagMan said:
Where they were supposed to land is class D, so would it be proper for the controller their to give permission to land without at least having them in sight?
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I've lost count as to how many times I've called the airport in sight and been handed over to tower several miles out and been cleared to land as soon as I checked in. Pretty sure tower didn't have me in sight when they cleared me.
 
No requirement to have the aircraft in sight to issue a landing clearance. That's why they have the phraseology "Not in sight, runway #, cleared to land." Of course wind and wheels check if applicable.

Although this error rests on the pilot, I can't help to think if the controller had used some common sense he could have averted this mistake. A simple query of the aircraft's position again would've helped.
 
Have been given continue ,cleared to land 12 miles out. Maybe the towers radar was down. Complacency on both the tower and crew,I would bet.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I've lost count as to how many times I've called the airport in sight and been handed over to tower several miles out and been cleared to land as soon as I checked in. Pretty sure tower didn't have me in sight when they cleared me.
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Makes sense. It seems that this would indicate that there was no other traffic.
 
But there isn't radar surveillence in class D. Am I correct in making this a blanket statement? Are there some class D's that have radar surveillance?
 
MBDiagMan said:
But there isn't radar surveillence in class D. Am I correct in making this a blanket statement? Are there some class D's that have radar surveillance?
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Depends entirely on the specific airport. Some Class D airports have a radar feed and others don't.
 
teethdoc said:
I hate landing at "almost dark" That's when I have the hardest time finding the runway, but like I stated in another post, I thought these big jets always flew a precision approach.
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No, they don't. I've seen Alaska bring a 737 into KPUW and I'm not aware of any precision approaches there.
 
MBDiagMan said:
Wonder what it will take to get it out? With those two big engines, you would think that they could back it up as far as they could and it would stand on it's tail gettin' outta there.
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Yeah, they do that in Orange County every day, so they have the practice :rofl:
 
MBDiagMan said:
But there isn't radar surveillence in class D. Am I correct in making this a blanket statement? Are there some class D's that have radar surveillance?
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Yes.

KNUQ has radar surveillance and feeds it to KPAO. Seen it in action in the KPAO tower.

Both airports are Class D.
 
MBDiagMan said:
But there isn't radar surveillence in class D. Am I correct in making this a blanket statement? Are there some class D's that have radar surveillance?
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Most civilian Ds don't have RADAR. Most (if not all) AF Ds do have RADAR.
 
Does a 737 have INS and/or GPS? I'd assume that it does, in which case, I can only imagine that the guys bought off on a juicier set of lights that conflicted with what they saw in the cockpit. Wouldn't be the first time that has happened in aviation. It isn't an excuse, but maybe an explanation.
 
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