Whoops-747 Dreamlifter lands at Jabara KS

[Scooter14]

Once?

I could only listen to the first 3 minutes or so (before I wanted to bang my head against a solid object), and I heard at least 4 times where he was struggling with the callsign.

The next 5 min was mind numbingly painful.

Pull out your goddamn smartphone that you probably left on for the whole flight. Figure out where you are since you have zero SA. Look at your FMS. Write down the coordinates. Look up the identifier for Jabara on AirNav. Compare the coordinates. Do they match? Do I have to think of all this myself? Finally, for the love of all things holy, just shut your pie hole!

[sky_king]

The next 5 min was mind numbingly painful.

Pull out your goddamn smartphone that you probably left on for the whole flight. Figure out where you are since you have zero SA. Look at your FMS. Write down the coordinates. Look up the identifier for Jabara on AirNav. Compare the coordinates. Do they match? Do I have to think of all this myself? Finally, for the love of all things holy, just shut your pie hole!

Listening to the conversation, I think it's best he asked someone for help.

[JarheadBoom]

Atlas "identifies" causes...

A few highlights:

- ...a number of intermittent issues with the first officer’s primary flight display earlier in the night-time flight created some skepticism on the part of the pilots about the reliability of the aircraft’s automation system.

- The two pilots did not brief each other about other area airports or the 19L approach lighting system that could have helped them to verify that they were landing at McConnell.

- Believing the aircraft was too high to land safely, the flying pilot disconnected the autopilot and increased the rate of descent toward what he thought was 19L at McConnell but was in fact Runway 18 at Jabara. The pilot monitoring was uncertain about the runway’s identity, but remained silent.

[HercDude]

Also mentioned in the video, which Atlas has not released for public viewing, was ATC’s failure to notice the aircraft descending toward the wrong airport.

Yep, I always rely on tower to tell me how to fly my airplane. Obviously ATC is to blame here.

[WheelzUp]

Yep, I always rely on tower to tell me how to fly my airplane. Obviously ATC is to blame here.

I see what you're driving at, but ATC gets off Scott free all too often. This pilot was a total goon, but I think the controllers should be held responsible for poor monitoring of the approach.

[Clayton Bigsby]

Yep, I always rely on tower to tell me how to fly my airplane. Obviously ATC is to blame here.

It's our job. Pretty fucking embarassing when a plane on your frequency, on your watch that you've cleared to land on a specific runway at your airport, goes somewhere else it wasn't supposed to. Presumably you have a radar display somewhere in your tower cab where you can follow your aircraft's descent, as well as a couple giant fucking windows to look outside and look for your airplane. Not a whole lot of excuses to offer if you're not using those.

A plane lands gear-up, it's somewhat on the tower controller for not noticing and alerting the pilot. Likewise for wrong-airport, wrong-runway landings.

I work in a city with an AFB at the opposite side of the city, a nice long SAC runway even. All summer long, with good weather when most inbound aircraft are on a visual approach, aircraft call the first field they see in sight and it's pretty commonly the wrong one - I'd say at least once or twice a week there's somebody going to the wrong field and I have to break them off, climb back above the MVA and turn towards the right airport.

In this case about the only thing potentially saving the IAB controllers is that the Atlas aircraft was lined up for the correct runway on heading, and rapidly dumped altitude to go to Jabara. Most radar displays don't update that quickly, and I'm guessing the controller didn't see the rapid drop in altitude readout with little relative change in aircraft path. However, that didn't stop the controller from sounding like a retard on the tapes, esp in the ensuing lat/long debate with the crew post-landing. Ugh.

Edited January 15, 2014 by Clayton Bigsby

[Warrior]

I work in a city with an AFB at the opposite side of the city, a nice long SAC runway even. All summer long, with good weather when most inbound aircraft are on a visual approach, aircraft call the first field they see in sight and it's pretty commonly the wrong one - I'd say at least once or twice a week there's somebody going to the wrong field and I have to break them off, climb back above the MVA and turn towards the right airport.

That's pretty f-ing scary. And also why "cleared for the visual" is not my favorite phrase.

[Clayton Bigsby]

That's pretty f-ing scary. And also why "cleared for the visual" is not my favorite phrase.

Fortunately it's a BRAC'd field (Malmstrom) so the only aircraft in the pattern there are Breckey and his crew in their Hueys, at least until the MANG starts flying there with their Hercs. Still, an aircraft landing there would be bad...the runway is closed, there's stuff out there periodically and the Security Forces guys would flip out.

[Breckey]

Hitting the skid monster course wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen. Just like Jabara, Malmstrom is uncontrolled so there is nobody but ATC to tell them that their about to land on a closed runway.

Edited January 16, 2014 by Breckey