Have you ever landed at the wrong airport?

[Hook]

NOTE: I originally posted this on the Steam forums. I thought people here might appreciate it as well. While it probably doesn't happen often in a flight simulator, it is more common in real life.

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Have you ever landed at the wrong airport? How could anyone be so stupid, right?

Well, it is easier than you think.

I was flying a DC-3 from Kathmandu to Calcutta during an around the world flight. You see some exotic names during a flight like this.

I was using real world charts from Skyvector.com with no autopilot and limited use of the GPS. I was using ADF and VOR to navigate along with some dead reckoning. The only magenta line I had was on Skyvector.

The modern chart only showed one airport where Calcutta is, a north-south runway just on the other side of a north-south river. I started my descent from 8000 feet in what I thought would put me at 1000 feet AGL well before I reached the airport.

I saw a north-south runway on the other side of the north-south river. Obviously my destination, right? Wrong. My first hint was that I was probably 1500 feet too high. My second hint was that there were no buildings around the runway. But this was Calcutta after all, maybe it wasn't as modern as I expected.

Since my runway was in sight, and no other runways even if I was looking for them, visibility was 7 miles and the actual Calcutta airport was over 9 miles away, I quit thinking about navigation and started concentrating on getting in a proper position to land and performing my before-landing checklist which kept me quite busy. If I'd checked the DME I'd have noticed I still had 10 or 12 miles to go.

I recently read a book by a real world pilot talking about landing at the wrong airport, which he had done, probably a few times. "There are those who have, and those who will." He blamed it on complacency. A postmortem of the landing indicated that it was more than that. When you think you have the runway in sight and you are well out of position to land, you have plenty to think about and it is easy to miss some details. Unfortunately, my checklists did not mention making sure any navigation instruments read as expected. This was at the end of the last flight of the day, I was tired, and I was happy to see a runway.

I paid for it today when I had to fly the 9 miles from VE31 to VECC in reported 1.7 nautical mile visibility (it looked like less). No ILS system on the DC-3, but I lined up with an NDB about 5 miles from the runway and the VOR which was at the airport. An excellent runway lighting system helped. It turns out that Calcutta is quite modern.

The moral of this story is, just because it is obvious that you are at the right airport doesn't mean that you are. Pay attention to details. If you are too high when you believe you have planned your descent properly, then you may be too far away. I should have tuned the runway NDB before approach and paid attention to the DME. I had been using another NDB for navigation and only one ADF on the aircraft.

The real world chart wasn't much help. It doesn't show VE31 but it has a restricted area around it. The GPS wasn't much help as the correct airport was out of the 10 mile range I had set. And you are unlikely to make this mistake if you are operating a modern flying computer on autopilot.

Anyone else have any good stories?

Hook

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PS. The DC-3 has a dial with two needles. One points to an NDB, the other to a VOR. If you line up the needles you are flying on a line directly between them. A little creative hacking gets the VOR needle pointing properly to the VOR, and if the ADF receiver is turned off the NDB needle will point to another VOR. Not quite stock Manfred Jahn. I did a similar mod to the stock DC-3's VOR needle.

[Bruce66]

A much shorter story here

I was flying the T6 up through Washington State on a Challenge mission (a friend and I exchange challenges for fun).

My destination was Point Roberts which I know well from real life but I have never seen the airport before. Visibility was a bit misty and I was on track for the airport - I thought. But I couldn't really identify a runway as such (ORBX PNW scenery by the way) so I continued my approach. No ATC at this airport so I anounced on final. I saw a building to the left of what looked like a grass strip and set down. Then I caught a glimpse through the trees of a couple planes and I realised the airport was on the other side of the road. Fortunately there was a gate in the fence and I managed to taxi over to the airport from the field I was in.

Not sure what would happen to me in real life for that kind of error.

[Hook]

Good one! Reminds me of this story. Who says flight sims aren't realistic?

A half hour later over Madison, Florida, David and I are craning our necks trying to find a public grass airfield depicted on my chart. The chart says it is 150 feet above sea level and 3,300 feet in length. No Unicom frequency. Right by a north-south road. I decide I have it and point it out to David. There is a strip oriented north and south one pasture west of the road and two empty hangars for airplanes. “That’s it, I think.” I pull the power back to let us descend.

“No,” David says, and points. “Over there. There’s some parked airplanes.”

Sure enough. I swing the Queen in the right direction as David chortles, “You were going to land in some farmer’s cow pasture!”

Such are the trials and tribulations of the world’s finest aviator when he takes his fourteen-year-old son flying.

Coonts, Stephen. The Cannibal Queen: A Flight Into the Heart of America (Kindle Locations 1122-1129). Open Road Media. Kindle Edition.

The airfield mentioned is 99FL, I think.

Hook

[dvm]

ever landed on the wrong carrier ? "Bad, very bad" !

[av8erjm]

Another question would be who hasn't landed at another airport than intended

[av8erjm]

I remember in real life building hours and ferrying aircraft from KS n' FL, to the NW, Completely inside out m' lost
, landing at an airport low on fuel guy comes out and asked if I needed fuel, I replied yes and tell me where am I, in my defense I was still fairly fresh and it was my first ferry

[CakeJake]

"I remember in real life building hours and ferrying aircraft from KS n' FL, to the NW, Completely inside out m' lost
, landing at an airport low on fuel guy comes out and asked if I needed fuel, I replied yes and tell me where am I, in my defense I was still fairly fresh and it was my first ferry"

By the looks of it, the fuel guy understood as well. Might have not been the first time he encountered such a thing.

By the way, just in case anyone’s interested, our neighbor is selling a few 18 Inch off road truck wheels. If anyone’s interested, feel free to PM me.

[CAPFlyer]

While not an "unintentional" landing, just the other day I was doing a BETA flight for the new Flysimware Falcon 50 from Georgia to Branson, MO. Not realizing that P3D doesn't have the new Branson airport in its default, I started the approach in near ILS/GLS minimums (400' ceiling and 3 mile visibility). I chose the RNAV/LPV (GLS) approach because I was testing the coupling of the GTN750 with the FA50's autopilot and was merrily following the needles until I broke out and realized there was no runway. Whoops... Immediate go around, climb to 10,000 feet (tops were around 9,000), think for a minute - go to Memphis (my planned alternate)? Nah, let's go to Northwest Arkansas Regional (KXNA), it's closer. One problem - I put Rogers field (next door) into the GPS. I ended up figuring it out before landing, but yeah, that was a fun experience.

[scottb613]

While not an "unintentional" landing, just the other day I was doing a BETA flight for the new Flysimware Falcon 50 from Georgia to Branson, MO.

Hi Folks,

LOL - what is it about Branson - Bermuda Triangle of the fly over states?


https://youtu.be/M3oW5Rx0_B8


Regards,
Scott


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scott - A2A]

Well, I never actually landed at the wrong airport but I almost did once, during one of my bi-annual reviews Jake was 12 and was in the back seat. "Boy Dad, you really messed up"

[Orlaam]

Since it's all sim time, I don't know for sure. I probably have, but GPS and other modern navigation methods have helped with this on my end. Interestingly, the day I flew into PAMR (Merrill Field) in Alaska. It's right next to PANC and Elmendorf AFB. You can easily recognize PANC, but I've never landed at other airports in that immediate area. So lining up to RWY 7 I realized I was confusing the parallel RWY 6 at the AFB, lol. I was 10 miles out though so I had time to scoot over.

[William Hughes]

I haven't landed at the wrong airport yet but I have tried hard. Was facing a sunset once and lined up on what I could have sworn was the runway. Turned out to be the roof of a really large chicken farm.

[Lewis - A2A]

I'm a child of the megenta line even if it is default gps hehe. So never at the wrong airport, always make it there just sometimes forget other things like gear in the sim

[crippy]

Kind of...how about a wrong runway?

It was when I was new to flying the L049 from A2A.

Simple short hop down to KDFW through some storms and then IFR conditions. It was all I could do to keep up with atc's vectors.

In short I found 7 runways all in less than 2 miles of me with no gps mind you. I also didn't realize the airport diagram on my tablet was upside down. So somehow the runway numbers didn't match and I got to hear those engines roar lol.

I also learned about how you can reject the default assigned approach and select an actual approach procedure, which ATC gives fewer vectors for...helpful for such a large plane.

Miss the L049 need to do some flights again soon just not enough time.

[Hook]

I almost did it again!

I was flying the ski equipped Aerosoft Beaver back from a landing on the Ruth Glacier on Denali to Talkeetna, saw an airstrip and entered the left hand traffic pattern to land to the north. I was kept a bit busy managing airspeed, flaps and trim which can be a handful when landing the Aerosoft Beaver and just as I turned final I noticed a larger airport a short distance away. Since this one had PAPI and buildings I realized I was probably at the wrong airport. Again. Diversion and landing were uneventful.

A2A needs more bush planes. Just put tundra tires or skis or floats on the 185 and make a taildragger version; this aircraft seems to be popular in Alaska. The Cub is good but I can't carry a party of climbers and their gear to McKinley in it.

Hook