Polish airliner lands at wrong airport

[chperplt]

MOSCOW (AP) - A Polish passenger plane arriving in Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad mistakenly landed Tuesday at a military airfield instead of the local civilian airport, according to news reports.
The plane, operated by Poland's Lot Airlines, landed at a Russian military airfield in the village of Chkalovsk, a few kilometers (miles) away from its intended destination of Khrabovo civilian airport, ITAR-Tass news agency reported. There were 41 passengers aboard, Interfax news agency said.

The plane did not have prior permission to land at the military airfield, ITAR-Tass said. The landing wasn't caused by any technical problems with the plane, but because the pilots thought that the military airfield — which hasn't recently been used — was the international part of the civilian airport, Interfax said.

Russian law enforcement agencies were investigating the incident, and after their investigation is complete the Polish plane will fly to the civilian airport and then continue on to Warsaw, ITAR-Tass said.

 

[V-1]

Q: So how many Pollocks does it take to fly an airliner?

A: Just two, as long as you don't care what airport you end up at!


Sorry, couldn't resist.

 

[firstthird]

This happened in Texas 5 years ago to a CAL crew in Corpus Christi, Texas. They landed a 737 on the military practice field Cabaniss instead of at Corpus International. The runways are about 5 miles apart. Bonus is that it is only a 5000 foot runway, I imagine that could get exciting if you weren't expecting it. Here is a link to an article about it.

http://cabaniss.home.texas.net/genealogy/cabaniss_field_landing.html

 

[Vik]

I've seen this sort of thing happen twice in the US in the past 5yrs. Oops!

 

[bigsky]

TWA landed at some small field in colorado last year- I believe they were going to col.springs.
I think it was United- anyways a 727 landed in cheyenne. Ft lauderdale has been mistaken numerous times for MIA by several Majors.

Does anyone remember the details: I think it was a NW dc-10 went to the wrong country over in Europe. Seems like they went to amsterdam instead of frankfurt or something?

Bottom line is easy on the polish jokes as We probably hold the record over here!

 

[ATL2CDG]

Here's another...

During a recent layover in XNA, our van driver told the crew about an AA F-100 that came within 100' of landing at Bentonville Mun. Airport, rather than XNA. He said it barely cleared several structures on the approach and upon realizing the error, the crew pulled away with the engines burning like crazy. He recalled that people from the surrounding buildings and businesses came out scratching their heads at the sights and sounds of an F-100 so close.

 

[ShawnC]

"Ladies and Gentlemen this is your Captain speaking, we would be at the terminal now if only we can find it. Until please remain seated with your seatbelts fastened."

You think they would have figured it out by the fact that tower wouldn't have seen them on final.

Reminds me of the story in Rod's PPL book, about the island airport that many pilots overfly twice the distance, and land at the military field.

"Ummm we don't have you in sight, but if you say you see the airport, your cleared to land."

 

[TankerPuke]

I think the TWA incident you speak of was when an MD80 landed at Grand Junction, CO due to an engine failure.

 

[tarp]

Delta made a beautiful landing on the way into Tampa Intl a few years back - unfortunately the big runway was MacDill AFB on the other side of the Bay!

 

[V-1]

An F100 on the ramp at Bentonville, Ar. would be quite a sight.

I've been looking, but can't find the news story about a large transport category jet that was supposed to land at Oscoda-Wurtsmith airport in Michigan (runway about 10,000X300) for a freight conversion or maintenance but landed instead twenty miles south at Iosco County (6D9). The runway at Iosco county was pointed the same direction but is only about 4000X50. It took them about three days to figure out how to get it out of there. This happened last summer or the summer before. Can you imagine calling your boss with that one?