sqwkvfr
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06/20/2004
Pilot Mistakenly Lands At Ellsworth
A Northwest Airlines plane landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base yesterday after the pilot apparently confused it for Rapid City Regional Airport.
Since the base controls the airspace, Ellsworth officials knew the plane was in the area and prepared for a landing.
Once the plane was on the ground, the 117 passengers and five crew members waited for three hours before they could take off and land on the correct airstrip.
© 2004 Associated Press.
From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
NORTHWEST FLIGHT ENDS UP AT AIR BASE
Passengers told not to peek as route originating in Twin Cities misses it's mark.
Robert Morrell's Northwest Airlines flight was only two minutes late Saturday departing the Twin Cities for Rapid City, S.D.
The Airbus 319 with Morrell and 116 other passengers on board didn't make up the time, but they did land within five minutes of its scheduled arrival.
But one glance out the window and Morrell wondered whether something was wrong. He saw barracks-like structures and military officials.
When none of the crew got on the intercom to welcome everyone to Rapid City, he figured something was up. When he and the other passengers were asked to pull down their window shades, he knew all was not right.
Northwest Airlines flight 1152 was sitting on the runway of Ellsworth Air Force Base, five miles and "just over the hill" from its intended destination of Rapid City Regional Airport.
After about five minutes, a voice from the cockpit broke the news to the passengers.
"He (the pilot) hemmed and he hawed and he said, 'We have landed at an Air Force base a few miles from the Rapid City airport and now we are going to figure out how we're going to get from here to there,' " Morrell said.
The figuring-out part stretched past three hours as passengers waited in the nearly full plane. During that time, military officials questioned the crew. Eventually, the captain and first officer were replaced by a different Northwest crew, which flew the passengers over the hill to the regional airport.
Northwest released little information about the incident, confirming only that the crew made an "unscheduled landing" at the military base at 12:15 p.m., Mountain Time.
"The situation is under review and we have nothing further to add," said Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch. "We're not acknowledging it was pilot error."
Morrell, a physician from Raleigh, N.C., interviewed on his cell phone during the delay, offered the consensus opinion of the passengers:
"Everyone is surmising it was pilot error. The presumption is that the pilot just landed at the wrong **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** airport."
Passengers were allowed to use cell phones and the lavatories but were told to draw their window shades for security purposes, Morrell explained. After the new crew came aboard, the airliner made the short flight to Rapid City, landing at 3:45 p.m., Mountain Time, three hours and 42 minutes late.
Ellsworth controls all airplanes in airspace 40 miles around the base and clears flights to land at the Rapid City airport and the base. Ellsworth confirmed with Rapid City airport officials that the Northwest plane was authorized in the airspace. The pilot was using what is called an instrument landing, according to a spokeswoman for Ellsworth. The pilot was using visual guides as well, she said.
"He was looking toward an airfield, saw one and thought it was the other," said Lt. Christine Millette. "As far as we knew, they were on track, and then they weren't."
Asked where the regional airport runway was in relation to the air base runway, Millette said, "Just over the hill."
Details about how the pilot veered off course were sketchy. It also was unclear why the crew relied on visual guides during an instrument landing. Instrument-guided approaches align a plane horizontally and vertically to the airstrip's runway and give precise guidance to an airport, said Hal Myers, a Northwest pilot and spokesman for the airline pilots union.
"If it was an instrument approach, it seems like a small likelihood you would end up at the wrong airport," Myers said.
A plane flying low as it approaches landing drops off radar. The Northwest jet was flying off radar, making its approach when the crew briefly spotted what they thought was Rapid City's airstrip. Then the plane went into the clouds, Millette said.
"So as they were coming out of the clouds, they were just about to land and they realized they were at the wrong airstrip," she said. "They said (to air controllers), 'Hey, we are landing' and within seconds they were on our airstrip."
Northwest would not discuss those details.
"We cannot confirm what they are saying and they don't speak for Northwest Airlines," Ebenhoch said.
He also declined to:
• Identify the pilots.
• Specify how long they'd been flying on Saturday.
• Specify their experience level or whether they'd ever landed at Rapid City.
• Say whether the pilots were suspended.
"We apologize to the customers for any inconvenience," he said, explaining that the passengers will receive roundtrip tickets to the destination of their choice within the lower 48 states.
The Federal Aviation Administration was contacted and is investigating, Millette said. Civilian airplanes occasionally make emergency landings at Ellsworth, she said. The last time was in March when an American Airlines jet landed at the base with mechanical difficulties.
Pilot Mistakenly Lands At Ellsworth
A Northwest Airlines plane landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base yesterday after the pilot apparently confused it for Rapid City Regional Airport.
Since the base controls the airspace, Ellsworth officials knew the plane was in the area and prepared for a landing.
Once the plane was on the ground, the 117 passengers and five crew members waited for three hours before they could take off and land on the correct airstrip.
© 2004 Associated Press.
From the St. Paul Pioneer Press:
NORTHWEST FLIGHT ENDS UP AT AIR BASE
Passengers told not to peek as route originating in Twin Cities misses it's mark.
Robert Morrell's Northwest Airlines flight was only two minutes late Saturday departing the Twin Cities for Rapid City, S.D.
The Airbus 319 with Morrell and 116 other passengers on board didn't make up the time, but they did land within five minutes of its scheduled arrival.
But one glance out the window and Morrell wondered whether something was wrong. He saw barracks-like structures and military officials.
When none of the crew got on the intercom to welcome everyone to Rapid City, he figured something was up. When he and the other passengers were asked to pull down their window shades, he knew all was not right.
Northwest Airlines flight 1152 was sitting on the runway of Ellsworth Air Force Base, five miles and "just over the hill" from its intended destination of Rapid City Regional Airport.
After about five minutes, a voice from the cockpit broke the news to the passengers.
"He (the pilot) hemmed and he hawed and he said, 'We have landed at an Air Force base a few miles from the Rapid City airport and now we are going to figure out how we're going to get from here to there,' " Morrell said.
The figuring-out part stretched past three hours as passengers waited in the nearly full plane. During that time, military officials questioned the crew. Eventually, the captain and first officer were replaced by a different Northwest crew, which flew the passengers over the hill to the regional airport.
Northwest released little information about the incident, confirming only that the crew made an "unscheduled landing" at the military base at 12:15 p.m., Mountain Time.
"The situation is under review and we have nothing further to add," said Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch. "We're not acknowledging it was pilot error."
Morrell, a physician from Raleigh, N.C., interviewed on his cell phone during the delay, offered the consensus opinion of the passengers:
"Everyone is surmising it was pilot error. The presumption is that the pilot just landed at the wrong **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** airport."
Passengers were allowed to use cell phones and the lavatories but were told to draw their window shades for security purposes, Morrell explained. After the new crew came aboard, the airliner made the short flight to Rapid City, landing at 3:45 p.m., Mountain Time, three hours and 42 minutes late.
Ellsworth controls all airplanes in airspace 40 miles around the base and clears flights to land at the Rapid City airport and the base. Ellsworth confirmed with Rapid City airport officials that the Northwest plane was authorized in the airspace. The pilot was using what is called an instrument landing, according to a spokeswoman for Ellsworth. The pilot was using visual guides as well, she said.
"He was looking toward an airfield, saw one and thought it was the other," said Lt. Christine Millette. "As far as we knew, they were on track, and then they weren't."
Asked where the regional airport runway was in relation to the air base runway, Millette said, "Just over the hill."
Details about how the pilot veered off course were sketchy. It also was unclear why the crew relied on visual guides during an instrument landing. Instrument-guided approaches align a plane horizontally and vertically to the airstrip's runway and give precise guidance to an airport, said Hal Myers, a Northwest pilot and spokesman for the airline pilots union.
"If it was an instrument approach, it seems like a small likelihood you would end up at the wrong airport," Myers said.
A plane flying low as it approaches landing drops off radar. The Northwest jet was flying off radar, making its approach when the crew briefly spotted what they thought was Rapid City's airstrip. Then the plane went into the clouds, Millette said.
"So as they were coming out of the clouds, they were just about to land and they realized they were at the wrong airstrip," she said. "They said (to air controllers), 'Hey, we are landing' and within seconds they were on our airstrip."
Northwest would not discuss those details.
"We cannot confirm what they are saying and they don't speak for Northwest Airlines," Ebenhoch said.
He also declined to:
• Identify the pilots.
• Specify how long they'd been flying on Saturday.
• Specify their experience level or whether they'd ever landed at Rapid City.
• Say whether the pilots were suspended.
"We apologize to the customers for any inconvenience," he said, explaining that the passengers will receive roundtrip tickets to the destination of their choice within the lower 48 states.
The Federal Aviation Administration was contacted and is investigating, Millette said. Civilian airplanes occasionally make emergency landings at Ellsworth, she said. The last time was in March when an American Airlines jet landed at the base with mechanical difficulties.
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