Pilot lands at wrong airport!
 

Passengers on a flight operated on behalf of Ryanair which was supposed to land at Derry Airport, found themselves at a military airbase 5 miles away yesterday, because the pilot landed them at the wrong airport!

Full story here - http://tinyurl.com/ogqvj

I saw that in the paper this morning. I'm surprised it wasn't shot at !

Well, it can happen to anyone. Scroll to the bottom of http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...110359,00.html

It is better than crashing at the right airport.

This happened to Delta some years ago. They landed at an airport that was closed - supposed to land at Louisville and did Lexington or vice versa.

Also - about the same time they had a flight from europe to the US - and both piots fell asleep and weren't sure where they were when they woke. Called a nearby flight (KLM I think) for info - but asked them not to report it to the FAA. Naturallly KLM did report it.

And Delta did end up with milllions in fines and staff retraining requirements - but I know there were other incidents at the same time.

I suppose we're lucky it doesn;t happen more often.

<b>Both</b> pilots <b>fell asleep</b>???

Yea, Intrepid. Having too much to drink does that to some people.

Hmmmm...I wonder where they were born since that seems to be such a bone of contention around here all of a sudden...I love bobbing fishhooks for wide-mouthed bass LOL

This thing about not knowing where you are has got to be either (1) something that happened DECADES ago or (2) a myth.

Inertial Navigation has been used in overseas flights for several decades and GPS has been around for aircraft for nearly 20 years.

Oh, I remember a tour guide telling us about a pilot from United, he landed on a small local pad instead of the international Palm Springs, CA. The same guide said that pilot was fired.

Not sure if it's a true story or a tale to amuse the tourists.

A similar tale was told to me about five years ago, concerning a RyanAir flight that missed Knock International airport and landed at the old airfield nearby. In order to turn the plane around they had to pull its wings off and screw them back in again when they had finally got it facing the right way for take off.
The coach driver who was taking us down to Galway from Knock said he heard the story from a friend who had an Uncle who knew a local farmer who's son lived near the old airstrip or something like that. Entertaining story but I didn't care much for its authenticity.

What a funny story. Any idea what all is involved in unscrewing the wings of an airplane and screwing them back in again, and any estimate how many technicians and how many days that might require?

I remember a major ailiner landing at MacDill Air Force Base back a few years ago instead of at Tampa International.

Every now and then there's a blurb on our local news about a sleeping pilot missing LAX and flying out over the Pacific before being presumably awakened by the flight control center.

LOL, Intrepid, yes it is better than crashing at the right airport ...
I never have the luck of taking a trip to say, Florida and have the plane mistakenly land in Rome :(

The Delta stories are absolutely true. I know because I was involved in another incident at the same time - which I can;t detail due to the conditions of the settlement - except to say that almost everyone on the plane I was on get a sizeable settlement.

The problem was Delta was expanding rapidly at the time - adding flights faster than they could add equipment and qualified staff. So they were breaking all kinds of rules about maximum pilot flight times, equipment/experience rules, turnaround times, staff training, and not following airline manufacturers recos about plane updates, etc.

They ended up in a world of trouble and it cost them many millions between FAA fines, refitting aircraft (and taking them out of service to do so), retraining staff - and payouts on the numerous lawsuits.

Well, I guarantee you that this one is a true story. It was the trip from hell on US Airways. We were flying from Athens, Ga. to Charlotte to London - Gatwick to Dublin.

First US Airways screwed up the flight out of Athens and we missed the flight to Gatwick. We spent the night in Charlotte. The next day we flew to Philadelphia to catch a flight directly to Dublin. Good idea, except for one minor glitch: US Airways had no crew to take the flight. Finally, about 6 hours after the scheduled departure time, and being run around the Philly airport from gate to gate, somebody shanghaied a crew and we boarded the aircraft for a long wait at the gate.

Finally at 11:58 pm the captain backed the aircraft away from the gate even though the flight was not ready to leave. Not to have done so would have made the already tired crew illegal.

Then about an hour off the Irish coast, breakfast procedures were interrupted with a call for all passengers to return to their seats. The head flight attendant started going over the landing at sea instructions.

The reason: the airplane was on fire.
I caught a glimpse of the cockpit and it was full of smoke. The fire was electrical and confined to the forward cargo compartment. To vent the cockpit, the pilot took the aircraft down to 10,000 feet.

We landed at Shannon where we were met by half of the fire brigades within a 20 mile radius of the airport. The fire was apparently out by the time we landed and the pilot was permitted to taxi the aircraft up to the gate. All passengers exited swiftly while the fire crews finished inspecting. Unfortunately for us, it would fly no more that day.

After about 4 more hours, a fleet of buses arrived at Shannon, and we finally got to Dublin after a 4 hour drive across Ireland.

Geez, bob, that's quite an ordeal and I know exactly how you felt. I was in an airplane fire in 2004 and it is indeed terrifying when you see smoke coming into the plane. I suppose my situation was a little better than yours as my plane caught fire just after take-off so we were able to turn around and land in Houston fairly quickly. For those who have never been through it, it seems funny when you watch those safety videos of bad actors going down the slides, but it sure isn't funny when you have to do it in reality.

Interesting tale about DL and landing at LEX and not SDF?? Not sure if this is true? And USAIR flying out of Athens, Ga....No way....
Maybe Southern Airways back in the 80's???

Back in the '70's a plane (might have been North Central) headed for Muskegon, Michigan (on Lake Michigan) landed instead 12 miles south at Grand Haven Municipal Airport. Both are east/west runways, although the former has lengthy runways (easily accomodates air shows). Ihe latter is purely a Cessna-type facility.

Did you hear about the Air India flight that was getting ready to land and the control tower told them, you may want to put the landing gear down. Now that would wake up a sleeping pilot.