Oops- Another wrong airport landing

[Hueypilot]

A Southwest flight bound for Branson landed at a small GA airport tonight. I'm sure the pilots experienced what the TPF C-17 crew went through when they realized they just touched down on a 3730' x 100' runway. At the end of the runway was a nice 30' drop-off onto a highway. Apparently they smashed on the brakes and stopped about 40' from the end.

https://www.kspr.com/news/local/southwest-jet-bound-for-branson-lands-at-wrong-airport/-/21051620/23895590/-/n08v03/-/index.html

[FUSEPLUG]

Looks like a couple of job openings.

[sky_king]

Is there a tower recording for this one?

[jcj]

I've been to PLK in a 182. Wow.

PLK runway is 12/30, BBG runway is 14/32 (7140 x 150) & has an ILS to 32. No non-RNAV IAP @ PLK (both airports have RNAV approaches to both ends). Beacon is in approx same relative position to the runway @ both airports. If they landed at 6:30 PM, it would have been dark.

PLK runway was NOTAM'ed closed @ 6;38 PM local.

Will be interesting to see them get it out of there.

PLK used to be owned by College of the Ozarks - it was one of the places COTO students could work (COTO students pay no tuition, but all must work at an on-campus job as a part of their being a student there).

Edited January 13, 2014 by jcj

[billy pilgrim]

How much runway would you need if you emptied most of the gas out of a 737? Just curious...

[HerkFE]

How much runway would you need if you emptied most of the gas out of a 737? Just curious...

I've heard that a 737 TO/L performance is similar to a Herk (roughly the same weights/speeds/distances). If that is the case then it should have no trouble getting out of a 3700' rwy empty. 73's go into Key West everyday with a 4800' rwy loaded.

[jcj]

Is there a tower recording for this one?

Should be for BBG - it was during their tower operating hours. That should be who they were talking to, at least until they were so low that the radio signal would be blocked by terrain (the airports are about six miles apart). PLK, of course, is non-tower. I read elsewhere that BBG is not on the LiveATC web streaming, but I understand you can get copies of ATC recordings by FOIA if so inclined. Maybe someone will do that.

There are a couple of news reports that have posted recordings of some of the (apparently several) "we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience" pax announcements. Those are interesting.

[Milchstrasse]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKEqYfMVc5A

Well, if that 767 can take off from that airstrip, I'm sure this 737 will have no problem.

Apparently there was a small plane stuck on the runway of the airport they were suppose to land at, so they diverted to this much smaller one.

[HerkFE]

Heard on the news this morning that a dispatcher was in the jump seat and "may have contributed" to the incident. They said the dispatcher is on paid leave now. There was mention of the sterile cockpit rule below 10k.....

[Clayton Bigsby]

Phew, dispatcher. I'm glad it wasn't a controller on our Flight Deck Training, although even with that I wonder if our program is in jeopardy, it's pretty useful to see the other side.

[Prozac]

737 and Herk similar TOLD? Huh?

[Tinker51]

How much runway would you need if you emptied most of the gas out of a 737? Just curious...

Surprisingly not much. I did an empty flight the other day and was off in around 2500'.

With 24K motors You can get off a 5000' strip at near max gross.

[Chutdoggin]

Where was tower on this? Im no expert but I would assume that unless weather was a factor tower would be looking to pick this up visually prior to landing... Any 7110.65 experts have any add'l words on when ATC is required/not required to be visual traffic when issuing a landing clearance? My only thought is that an aircraft landing 8 miles away would look the same as one landing on my runway...

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[Breckey]

to a previous discussion by our resident ATC type

[HerkFE]

737 and Herk similar TOLD? Huh?

I've heard that a 737 TO/L performance is similar to a Herk (roughly the same weights/speeds/distances). If that is the case then it should have no trouble getting out of a 3700' rwy empty. 73's go into Key West everyday with a 4800' rwy loaded.

Just what someone told me. I haven't seen the actual data, thus my qualifying words.

[Clayton Bigsby]

Where was tower on this? Im no expert but I would assume that unless weather was a factor tower would be looking to pick this up visually prior to landing... Any 7110.65 experts have any add'l words on when ATC is required/not required to be visual traffic when issuing a landing clearance? My only thought is that an aircraft landing 8 miles away would look the same as one landing on my runway...

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Answer is, it depends. Any controller speaking to an aircraft has a responsibility to make sure it goes where it's supposed to, as I mentioned in the other thread, whether it's a Tower controller or an Approach guy. From what I can tell, Branson's tower is a contract tower, which means any Approach control services are conducted off-site in Springfield, or by Kansas City Center. Center approach services are usually only done late at night, taking over for approach facilities that close for the night (if they're not 24 hour ops) and generally are one at a time operations, as depending on terrain and type and location of the emitter center radars are optimized for higher altitudes and don't do so well for lower altitudes. Additionally they have a much slower refresh rate, about 10 seconds per full 360ª sweep. Anyway.

If whichever facility the pilots were talking to was still open, then yeah this is very bad for whomever was working the aircraft. But from what I can see on airfield info for https://airnav.com/airport/KBBG, Tower hours are 0700-2100, which were the same as my previous tower. If the tower was closed, then most likely the frequency becomes a CTAF/UNICOM and there'd be no one on-frequency to observe the wrong track and issue any warnings or guidance. Usually at night Approach or Center frequency changes (ships) the aircraft to Tower 15 miles out or so, sometimes more esp if it's slow...and other facilities don't have ready access to neighboring facilities' frequencies, so if Approach or Center shipped the aircraft they wouldn't have a ready way of issuing correction, short of transmitting on Guard. I did see a media report yesterday that someone in ATC did attempt to warn SWA, but there was no detail (typical). Air carriers are supposed to monitor Guard, but if some guys are having full fucking conversations over Guard (happens all the time!) then it's effectively com-jammed and useless. All it takes is one or two guys to monopolize the frequency. Finally facilities do have portable, tunable radios however they're limited in range.

It all depends on what time SWA landed, I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'd say there's a decent chance BBG's tower might have been closed, and if so there's nobody to warn them. Maybe Springfield or Kansas City were trying to warn them on Guard, but obviously they didn't hear either from low altitude/poor reception, other people dominating Guard, the radios turned off, distractions in the cockpit, etc.

Finally...for places open, yes there's phraseology for an aircraft inbound that's not in sight:

7110.65 Ch 3−10−7. LANDING CLEARANCE WITHOUT VISUAL OBSERVATION

When an arriving aircraft reports at a position where

he/she should be seen but has not been visually

observed, advise the aircraft as a part of the landing

clearance that it is not in sight and restate the landing

runway.

PHRASEOLOGY−NOT IN SIGHT, RUNWAY (number) CLEARED TO LAND.

NOTE−Aircraft observance on the CTRD satisfies the visually

observed requirement

CTRD means Certified Tower Radar Display.

Edited January 18, 2014 by Clayton Bigsby

[jcj]

The landing was at about 1830 local time

[Clayton Bigsby]

The landing was at about 1830 local time

Huh, well no idea then. Without the tapes I got nothin.

[busdriver]

The ATC guys may have fucked up, but at the end of the day the dude or dudette flying that plane landed at the wrong fucking airport. Marconi does not make airplanes fly.

[Breckey]

Another reason it's good to fly helos. Wrong airport? Takeoff and fly to the right one.

[Jughead]

Another reason it's good to fly helos. Wrong airport? Takeoff and fly to the right one.

Wait--I thought you rotorheads sneered at anyone who needed an airport to begin with....

[stract]

Another reason it's good to fly helos. Wrong airport? Takeoff and fly to the right one.

we don't land to the wrong airport, we call that a false insertion. (really, we do)

Edited January 22, 2014 by stract

[Breckey]

So to speak!

Wait--I thought you rotorheads sneered at anyone who needed an airport to begin with....

Only when I need gas. Farmer John isn't too keen on a FARP in his alfalfa field. Edited January 22, 2014 by Breckey

[Chutdoggin]

The ATC guys may have ######ed up, but at the end of the day the dude or dudette flying that plane landed at the wrong ######ing airport. Marconi does not make airplanes fly.

Whole thing is absolutely a goat rope. I am certainly not making excuses for the aircrew either - obviously the pilot in command is responsible for this flight... and where it ends up. The reason I asked that question earlier was because I had read an AP release stating that ATC had already been cleared. Im also familiar with the 7110.65 and was asking for an interpretation because it doesn't specify when the cleared to land & not in sight procedure comes into play. I imagine that would be more a -250 thing on the AF side, but this aint an Air Force base.

That said, I admittedly have myself been misquoted in the media (slightly embarrassing) but I wanted to hear thoughts from the peanut gallery first.

On a side note - seriously, no cheesy C-17 jokes yet?

[HerkFE]

I suppose the numbers aren't too far apart. Depends are which models you're comparing. I'd say a light 737 and a moderately heavy legacy Herc not using max effort procedures would be close. Max weights are about 155K, around 50K gas, empty weights around 100K. Dimensions are similar. Speeds are higher in the 73 due to aerodynamics, but the two 25K engines at full power for takeoff, and spoilers, reverse, and max autobrakes for landing bring the runway numbers back down in the C-130 range. I think the lowest computed landing distance I've seen was around 4200. Having done a max autobrake landing while ferrying an empty aircraft, I'd say that's conservative. However, max brakes are normally not selected because it scares the shit out of passengers.

I happened to have gone to Key West yesterday on a Delta 73. I've been in there about three times so I know what to expect. Funny as hell yesterday when they planted the landing listening to the gasps from the pax. We were fairly empty coming out so the T/O was fairly "normal". I've come out of there loaded and the captain made an announcement to the effect that 'we are about to do a max effort T/O due to the short rwy'. I'll admit I started getting slightly aroused but it didn't last long. It wasn't nearly as erotic as a Herk max effort.