Well, Wichita does have more airports per capita than any other American city. Still, I’ve never heard of a plane landing a the wrong one before.
Happened in 1979 when a Boeing 7373 passenger jet headed Sheridan, Wyoming, landed 35 miles away in Buffalo, Wyoming. Plane was able to take off and land at the right airport.
Also in the 1980s a Boeing 747 passenger jet from Hawaii lined up for a landing at Hawthrone Airport instead of LAX. Plane was alerted and landed at the right one.
Found this when trying to find a partially remembered commercial jet landing at a military airfield.
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/1631724/
In Europe, you have to not only worry about what airport, but what country...
Back in the 1950’s, there was a small, private airport a few miles off the end of the major airport in town. An airliner landed there (I think it was a DC-6) instead of the airport he was supposed to be at. It was also very short and they were saying at the time that it couldn’t take off.
They stripped as much out of the plane as possible, drained all but about 15 minutes of fuel from it, and brought in some hotshot pilots. It took off successfully and flew to the airport it was supposed to have landed at. Then they started putting the airplane back together again.
I have heard of this happening several times since. I don’t know what happens to the pilots, but I imagine they end up looking for a new job.
It happens once in a while in Tucson, the main runway at the airport is as almost the same angle as the one at the AFB, and the AFB is about 90 seconds passenger jet flight further down that direction from the airport. Always kind of funny when it happens since it’s technically a security breach.
It happened in Portland OR 20 + years ago. A 707 or(?) not sure, but landed at Troutdale about 20 miles to the east of PDX. they had to strip the plane, very light fuel load to get it off the much shorter runway.
I’ve landed at the wrong airport a few times prior to the GPS days. Once in a tri Pacer in TX due to radio confusion, and once in a 310, dodging T storms in OK.