i can't be tooo hard on them as they are qualified to do something i'm not, but... just damn
Posted on 08/11/2012 5:29:16 PM PDT by Doogle
C-17 shows it's stuff after landing at wrong airport...(Peter Knight, Tampa)....."missed McDill by this much"..(holding up thumb and index)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkuqsd_tRHw&feature=relmfu
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
Always double chec the ILS identifier.
Always double chec the ILS identifier.
...yeah but still don’t explain tower communications....at Tampa or McDill....
I watched a military 747 (NAECP) do a minimum distance landing. They stopped it in far less distance than this C17 just did.
There has to be a reason he put it down. Even if he lined up on the wrong runway he would have noticed it before touching down and would have aborted the landing.
see #25
i can't be tooo hard on them as they are qualified to do something i'm not, but... just damn
they make a REAL big hole in the air don't they... and the wing tip vortices, well 8^)
Wonder if she needs a tailgunner?
MacDill runway is approximately 30 and 210.
Not kinda same direction!
When I was in the Air Force I was the Air Traffic Control Officer and one of the favorite jokes of our FAA guys went like this
"Control Center this is Flight 255 and we wish landing instruction" Flight 255 you are cleared to land on R 90.
At the same time Flight 644 calls, control this is flight 644 and request landing instructions. Control responds Flight 644 you are cleared to land on runway K 270. (The flights are cleared to the same runway from direct opposite direction)
The pilots scream "Control you've cleared us to land on the same runway from opposite directions!"
Control replies
Y'all be careful now, Ya Hear!
I was stationed in Texas!
Ha! Ha!
A few other comments:Landing at the wrong airport (or on the wrong runway) happens a bit more often than is publicized, especially when the runways of the airports involved are oriented in the same direction. Peter O. Knight’s runway is 4-22, which means that it’s oriented approximately in the directions of 040 and 220 degrees. MacDill’s runway is 5-23, and the actual headings of the runways actually differ by 11 degrees.
Knight airport has no control tower. According to the story at http://www2.tbo.com/news/news/2012/jul/20/18/huge-air-force-cargo-plane-lands-at-davis-islands–ar-437276/, they would have been under the control of Tampa Int’l Airport Approach Control until the aircraft reached the general vicinity of MacDill (the story said 10 miles), at which time Tampa would have handed them off to MacDill. Tampa likely would have been following the aircraft on radar til the handoff. They would have been operating on an instrument flight plan up til that point.
I would speculate that on being handed off to MacDill, the approach or local controller would have asked the pilot if he had the field in sight. If the pilot said “yes”, and traffic allowed, the controller would have the ability to cancel the aircraft’s instrument flight plan and clear the aircraft to land on visual flight rules from the point of handoff, thereby terminating any requirement to guide and monitor the aircraft on radar. The controllers would not have had any way to know that the pilot had identified the wrong airport until the aircraft was close to landing at Knight. Even on radar, the approach would probably have looked like any other normal approach because the approach path to MacDill would have taken the aircraft over Peter Knight anyway. And I seriously doubt that it would have occurred to any of the controllers to watch the aircraft to ensure it was landing at the wrong airport, and they’d have probably been busy with other traffic (I’m sure that will be part of the investigation).
The photo in the story shows the aircraft landing on Runway 22. MacDill is a few miles further to the southwest of Knight, so the pilot would have seen Knight first. Whether he made a mistake in landing there or he had a problem that warranted an immediate landing remains to be seen.
Both airports have over-water approaches to Knight’s Runway 22 and MacDill’s Runway 23. If the pilot hadn’t ever landed at MacDill before, it’s quite possible that the similarities in the approaches may have lulled the pilot into mistaking Knight for MacDill. As mentioned above, fatigue could have been a factor. However, the pilot and copilot are ultimately responsible for acquainting themselves with all aspects of their flight, including their departure and arrival airports.
Norris’ comment about a Flight Evaluation Board is right on target. The pilot and copilot will both be put through an investigative wringer, and it’s quite possible that a board might OK them for further flight duty after getting retraining. However, it’d obviously be a big black mark on their performance evals, and at the least their chances for promotion will be hurt badly.
Gee, I wonder what the liberals would have said if this happened four years ago...
Sweet! Into the wild blue yonder.
He didn’t land at the Tampa airport. The Tampa airport wouldn’t have any problem handling a plane of this size.
He landed at the Peter Knight airport. Its runway is a third of the size of MacDills.
Here’s a map of the two airports in question - http://goo.gl/maps/Dytzq
Thanks, cleared up some
Reminds me of the pilots trying to land in the fog. Pass after pass, they almost make it. Finally, they are able to put the plane on the ground.
Pilot: “Man, that was close. And making this harder, this is the shortest runway I’ve ever landed!”
Co Pilot: “Yeah, but look how wide it is too!”
..did a search for C-17....nothing came up
"what's he doing way up here"
I just love a good conspiracy theory...
The reason the pilot landed on the wrong runway was due to a magnetic pole shift, this is after all 2012 and supposedly just before Christmas something catastrophic will happen.
At first we will hear of strange cases like this, and the birds will migrate in different directions and in some really isolated cases people will claim an electric motor is running in the opposite direction.
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