Plane lands at wrong airport

centredaily.com ^ | Thu, Jan. 15, 2004 | Anne Danahy

[thackney]

Patience was probably the most-needed virtue for passengers aboard a plane coming from Pittsburgh and bound for University Park Airport Friday.

The daily flight on a US Airways affiliate Shuttle America plane ended up landing at Mid-State Regional Airport in Rush Township -- close, but not the chosen destination.

"When the pilot walked in, he said, 'Here's one for the news,' " said Joanne Shields, business secretary at Mid-State Airport, which is near Philipsburg.

US Airways spokeswoman Amy Kudwa said the company did transport passengers from Philipsburg to State College on Friday. She referred all other questions to Shuttle America, which she said is one of six affiliated carriers in the US Airways Express network.

Despite several attempts over two days, no one from Shuttle America would comment on the flight, which is a daily route from Pittsburgh to State College.

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said the agency would not receive a report on such an incident.

Shields said her understanding is the pilot wasn't familiar with the area and, when landing, somehow ended up flying in to Mid-State.

That airport handles mostly private planes, not commuter flights, so an unannounced landing is not unheard of, Shields said.

But not having radio communication was a little strange.

Shields said she and her husband were working and when they saw the plane pull in they tried to contact the pilot on the radio to see if assistance was needed.

But he must have had his radio set to a different frequency.

"We waited for (the pilot) to come in and see what they needed. They wouldn't allow any passengers to get off because of security reasons," Shields said.

The passengers had to wait on the plane at least an hour until a van could be dispatched from University Park to retrieve the passengers.

Eight passengers were on board, Shields said.

Shields said the pilot apparently made a phone call from the office to a flight service center.

"They faxed him page after page of things. I guess he had to report it as an incident of some sort," Shields said.

[thackney]

In this day and age????

[thackney]

"which way do I go" ping

[RadioAstronomer]

I saw this happen with a Frontier Airlines 737 Jet a number of years ago. It was supposed to be landing at Casper Air Terminal; however, it set down on an abandoned field about 30 miles away instead. The runway was not long enough to fly the plane back out and Casper had to dispatch a bus. They dismantled and trucked the plane out of there.

[JETDRVR]

Wrongway Corrigan alert ;0)

[gathersnomoss]

You know, truckers from time to time pull off to the side of the road when they are too tired to drive. Maybe this was the case for this pilot.

[JETDRVR]

Very true. Could be a newbie El Capitan ?

[nuconvert]

"I guess he had to report it as an incident of some sort,"

Well, I hope so. How could he just land without being in contact with the tower?

[SamAdams76]

Why couldn't the pilot just take off again and head to the right airport this time? Strange story. I'm sure this was the last flight this pilot will ever fly for US Airways. He's probably interviewing for JetBlue right now or some other outfit.

Something similar happened to me as a passenger. I was flying from Chicago to Birmingham and the plane landed in Louisville, Kentucky with no explanation. Some of the passengers thought they were in Birmingham and started grabbing their carry-ons but the stewardesses said to stay put. Fifteen minutes later, we were back on our way to Birmingham. Plane never seemed to leave the runway. It just turned around and took back off again and the situation was never explained to us other than "we had to make an unexpected stop". Very strange, that flight was.

[Born Conservative]

ping

[MoralSense]

Yeah, it is strange. Before GPS devices, it happened to private pilots pretty regularly, but believe me, airports can look a lot alike from up there. But a pro? With a scheduled airline?

[Grammy]

Same thing happened in Columbus Ohio. Didn't land at Port Columbus, but at Don Scott, OSU's airport. They had to remove everything removable before it could take off.

[RansomOttawa]

Shields said her understanding is the pilot wasn't familiar with the area and, when landing, somehow ended up flying in to Mid-State.

Being a transit rider, I've seen experienced bus drivers make a wrong turn simply because they were driving an unfamiliar route. Or, funnier, sometimes they need to ask regular riders for directions. 8-)

Never heard of it happening with a plane though, but it seems to me to be a perfectly natural mistake.

[Puppage]

WELCOME ABOARD!

[70times7]

Reports indicate the pilot's name is Peter "wrongway" Peachfuzz. The passengers were detained because a pair of international terrorists were suspected to be on the plane - a tall woman and short man, both with heavy accents. The terrorists were not found, but a moose and squirrel were discovered on the plane.

[Steely Tom]

Not quite in the same league as your experience, but one time I was on a flight into Syracuse that, when it emerged from the clouds on final approach, was maybe 200 yards off the runway center line. The pilot sort of "kicked" the plane's nose up and hightailed it out of there. He came on the PA and said we'd try again "and see if the Syracuse tower can figure out how compute a vector." He said we didn't have enough fuel to try again, and that we were going to Rochester to fuel up.

Which we did. He took us to Rochester, got fuel (papers had to be exchanged with the left side of the cockpit by means of a long pole; I think maybe the pilot paid for the fuel with a credit card) and took off again for Syracuse.

The thing that stuck in my mind was the flight time: the aircraft was a 737, and we went from Rochester to Syracuse, runway to runway, in 17 minutes!

It's not a flight plan you can normally get in that equipment, to say the least.

The part about not being able to land in SYR because "we didn't have enough fuel" always struck me as... well, as BS. I think it was a case of pure pique. The way the pilot kicked the nose up and blew out of there felt just like riding in the back seat with a driver who gets ticked at some doofus up ahead, and blows past him at the first opportunity.

(steely)

[JETDRVR]

thats pretty series! This could be HUGH ;)

[cc2k]

SamAdams76 wrote:

---

Why couldn't the pilot just take off again and head to the right airport this time?

---

They don't mention exactly what type of aircraft this was. Also, I'm not familiar with this particular airport.

However, most jet powered aircraft can land on a shorter runway than they require for takeoff. It's possible that this airport didn't have a runway long enough for this particular aircraft to take off (with passengers and cargo aboard).

In that case, they can get the engineers involved, empty the plane of all passengers and cargo (and maybe even pull the seats and interior out of the cabin if necessary), put a minimal fuel load on to get it to nearby larger airport and calculate whether the plane will be able to take off with that minimal load on the shorter runway. If not, it's time to take the wings off and truck the airplane to a bigger airport.

[Poohbah]

Plane lands at wrong airport

"D'OH!"

[Darksheare]

Something similar happened here in NY back in 1998/99.
There's Stewart International Airport, and roughly 3-6 miles to it's direct west is Orange County Airport.
IIRC it was a DC-10 cargo hauler or similar aircraft flying in, and they were taking a vector from what they THOUGHT was the tower..
Here's the FUN part.
The guys in Stewart's Tower guide you in using the Mk 1 eyeball, the radar set they have doesn't display in the tower.
It displays to controllers out on Long Island.
The LI controllers hand the plane off to Stewart's tower once Stewart has visual contact and ID confirmation with the aircraft.
Needless to say, the plane mentioned above lined up with a runway, and was almost to te point of no return during landing.
They told the controllers "We're on final to the runway" to which the controllers said, "You realize you're STILL x miles out?"
They'd lined up on teh wrong airport's runway.
The cargo hauler puts on the power and thunders down the center of the runway roughly 200 feet above the ground.
The runway at Orange County Airport is too short for such large aircraft by about 2000 or so feet at least.

Orange County Airport's operators came wandering outside somewhat amused, somewhat scared, somewhat peeved that this large aircraft was wandering through their neighborhood.
This is only a minor occurence at this airport.
There's been others.
And Stewart was supposed to get BRITE displays so that they could guide people in.
Whether or not this has happened, no-one knows at the moment.

[expatpat]

Yeah, it happens quite a bit. But University Park is out in the boondocks and this is hard to understand. If he was IFR, the pilot would be in New York Center airspace and they might have noticed his error, although the mountains would cut them off when he got close and/or low. If he was VFR, its hard to miss the high escarpment and the big Penn State stadium.