Land The Plane At Any Airport?

Since 1990, at least 150 flights have landed at the wrong airport. Many are never reported.

My daughter had a seat reserved to fly from Dallas Love Field to Houston Hobby. She arose at 5:00 AM and arrived at the airport with her boarding pass and carry-on bag well before the departure time of 8:30 AM. At 9:30 AM, an attendant told her that her plane had been delayed but was now in the area. It would land soon. It did land – at DFW airport several miles away. At 12:00 noon, she remained in the boarding area at Love Field. No one could give her an estimate of when to expect take-off. Frustrated and running late, she retrieved her car from long-term parking and drove to Houston.

Since then, we’ve learned that incidents like this frequently occur. In almost all, the pilots were cleared by controllers to fly based on what they could see rather than relying on automation. Many incidents occur at night, with pilots reporting they were attracted by runway lights of the first airport they saw during descent. Some pilots said they disregarded navigation equipment that showed their plane slightly off course because the information did not match what they saw out their windows – a runway straight ahead.

Not all these events are reported to the media, and reports to NASA’s Aviation Safety Reporting System are voluntary. However, of the recorded events, out of 29,000 commercial flights daily in the U.S., only eight wrong airport landings in the last decade occurred. Two more were reported on national TV during the past week. My daughter’s experience makes three in one week. None resulted in injury or death.

At a time when a cell phone can guide you to your driveway, commercial pilots try to land at the wrong airport more often than most passengers realize or government officials admit.