Whoops

[major_clanger]

Northwest Airlines plane lands at wrong airport.

But before we laugh too hard, it's worth noting that this used to happen at RAF Northolt, which is close to, and has a runway parallel to, the north runway at Heathrow. Apparently the problem was solved in part by painting 'NO' on the adjacent gasometer - officially because it stood for 'Northolt', and by rumour as a stern injunction to misplaced aircrew.

Apparently this is more common that you might think.

MC

Comments

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there a case a few years back where a plane landed in the wrong country? I think it was a flight to Belgium which landed in Holland by mistake. The passengers, using the snazzy new map displays, knew something was wrong, but couldn't get word to the cockpit, or something like that...

[bellinghman.livejournal.com]

There is a local legend (local to Northolt, that is) that one time a big one landed by accident. The runway at Northolt at being a little shorter than at LHR, they had a problem, solved by unloading the passengers and sending them on by road, removing all baggage (ditto), removing all the seats (the remaining major weight) and finally doing a very short hop with little more than vapour in the tanks.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

At least a runway is a runway. Ten or so years ago there was a BA 747 that descended in thick fog and nearly landed on the Penta Hotel at Heathrow, mistaking the Perimeter Road for the runway. The co-pilot had suffered food poisoning in flight, the Captain and Flight Engineer both misread the radar and headings, and it was only an early ground proximity warning that alerted them to impending disaster. Missed the roof by 50 feet. It could have been one of the worst accidents in aviation history, and after the inquiry the Captain later killed himself.