I plan on trying this at home later. "Canadian officials are wondering how an Air Canada Airbus A319 crew on a perfectly clear August day appeared to set up to land at a tiny municipal airport in British Columbia, instead of their real destination. The Transportation Safety Board (TSB) is investigating the incident in which the A319, with its gear down and flaps partly extended, lined up for the 75-feet-wide by 3360-feet-long Runway 23 at Vernon Regional Airport." Check out [http://www.avweb.com/newswire/9_37a/briefs/185645-1.html] for the full story. [/br]Mabey Big Iron pilots should fly a little bit more VFRAny one want to start a pool on how successful the landing would be?Blue SkiesKevin

>I plan on trying this at home later. >"Canadian officials are wondering how an Air Canada Airbus>A319 crew on a perfectly clear August day appeared to set up>to land at a tiny municipal airport in British Columbia,>instead of their real destination. The Transportation Safety>Board (TSB) is investigating the incident in which the A319,>with its gear down and flaps partly extended, lined up for the>75-feet-wide by 3360-feet-long Runway 23 at Vernon Regional>Airport." >Check out>[http://www.avweb.com/newswire/9_37a/briefs/185645-1.html] for>the full story. [/br]>Mabey Big Iron pilots should fly a little bit more VFR>Any one want to start a pool on how successful the landing>would be?>>>Blue Skies>Kevin"C'on Fred, let's make it a visual."-------------------MeatWaterProfessional Audio 4 Entertainmentwww.meatwater.com

Something similar happened in the UK a few years back, during the Farnborough airshow. A B-1B supersonic USAF bomber was schedualed to perform a low pass over the airfield - but ended up over Blackbushe airport instead. I bet the controllers didn't expect that!Reminds me of this old one as well:2 Aer Lingus pilots on approach to a rarely used airfield:Pilot: "Eh, Seamus that runway's really short"Co-pilot: "Yeah, but look how wide it is"RTC

It happens a lot more than you would think. I fly GA and its always tough to spot the airport especially in hazing polluted skies. Even my home town field of KMOD can be obscured until three miles out. We have a railway yard parallel to the main runway 28R/10L but the yard is about 3 miles east of the field and sometimes folks will try to land there...makes the tower controllers very nervous as they report a three mile final and they cannot pickup the aircraft with their high powered binoculars. Flying is never easy and if you become complacent and get tunnel vision you to will be trying to land a bus on a 3000 foot strip.I imagine that if they had landed the mains would have sunk through the thin runway surface...that would have been interesting!Tony

Hi I think the one that springs to my mind and if he did have landed, it could have had the potential to be one of the biggest aviation accidents in UK. A 747 was on finals ,the runway escapes me. Only at the last moment he realised he was about to land on the M4 motorway which runs along side the airport, of coarse it was night time and all he could see was rows of lights. I'm not sure but i think the pilot commited suicide some time later. Shaun.

Um, wouldn't the FMC database show their error on the navigational display panel?

>I'm not sure but i think the pilot commited>suicide some time later.Yeah I seem to recall this. Pilot took a leave of absence straight after the incident suffering from nervous shock. Subsequently had a full blown breakdown and killed himself.EDIT: actually, I remember more of this now. Pilot resigned not long into his "sick leave", but never got over the memory of when he nearly killed everyone on board.Paulhttp://www.strontiumdog.plus.com/sbird.jpgOfficially licenced by British Airways plc for use of name and logo[p]AMD XP2800+ Barton, Gigabyte GA-7NNXP nForce2, 1Gig Crucial PC3200 DDR 400MHz, Gainward 128 MB GF4-4200, SB Audigy, 3 x WD Caviar SE[/p]

I totally agree, it happens more often than we would think. The haze can be pretty bad in the valley. I instructed at KLVK for a year, and I heard at least 3 instances when someone landed on the taxiway instead of 25R. Then once I was on the runup area and some guy was on short final coming at us lined up with the taxiway; the controller initiated the go around after the pilot confirmed he was lined up with the runway.Alex

Back in the 50s when Blackbushe was a very busy airport possibly second only to Heathrow,there were at least two(I believe but possibly more) instances of aircraft making approaches to the main road that almost parallelled the main runway.The situation was possibly made confusing by the fact that the road actually ran thru the airport as in those days ,the hangars and maintenance areas were to the southeast of the road and the runways to the northwest.Those who are interested can look on my website here--http://daveg4otu.tripod.com/airfields/bse.html#You will find aerial views that show the airfield layout then and now.Dave

> A B-1B supersonic USAF bomber was>schedualed to perform a low pass over the airfield - but ended>up over Blackbushe airport instead. I bet the controllers>didn't expect that!>>RTCJust a FYI....B1B's are not Supersonic, though the small batch of B1A's were. They radically reduced the Radar Signature of the aircraft, and it's mission (to flying at nap of the earth level at high sub-sonic speeds) so that it was felt that Supersonic Speed was not needed any longer.And yes, I do work at Boeing, was McDonnell Douglas, was Rockwell International... :D

>And yes, I do work at Boeing, was McDonnell Douglas, was>Rockwell International... :DOK everyone.. which of you guys asked where "Jetninja" worked?? Hmmm? No-one? Paulhttp://www.strontiumdog.plus.com/sbird.jpgOfficially licenced by British Airways plc for use of name and logo[p]AMD XP2800+ Barton, Gigabyte GA-7NNXP nForce2, 1Gig Crucial PC3200 DDR 400MHz, Gainward 128 MB GF4-4200, SB Audigy, 3 x WD Caviar SE[/p]

>Any one want to start a pool on how successful the landing>would be?I'm sure the landing would be sucessful... it's the stopping before the end of the runway that would be a problem!

If I recall, the pilot was under a lot of stress because they came from Hong Kong or some asian airport (too much hours flying), they didn't sleept much due to a problem with the food over dinner, on top of that the First Officer was really sick and to make things worse, approaching to Heathrow they got bad weather.Now you got one man flying the aircraft with lack of sleep, no FO, bad weather and you can imagine what can happen in such situation.They went to court and I think they found the pilots guilty. He never got together after this and short after commited suicide. I've read this several years so it might contain some errors/omissions.Regards,Pedro

>>And yes, I do work at Boeing, was McDonnell Douglas, was>>Rockwell International... :D>>OK everyone.. which of you guys asked where "Jetninja">worked?? Hmmm? No-one? >>Paul>http://www.strontiumdog.plus.com/sbird.jpg>Officially licenced by British Airways plc for use of>name and logo>>[p]AMD XP2800+>Barton, Gigabyte GA-7NNXP nForce2, 1Gig Crucial PC3200 DDR>400MHz, Gainward 128 MB GF4-4200, SB Audigy, 3 x WD Caviar>SE[/p]In our business that's called a "preemtive Strike"! :DLOL!

"C'on Fred, let's make it a visual."Don't you mean:"C'on Fred, let's make it a visual, eh."Tim13 ;) :-lol