How Could a Boeing 747 Crew Err So Badly?

Thursday, November 21, 2013 at 09:25 PM ET

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Key Takeaways:

A Boeing 747 Dreamlifter mistakenly landed at the wrong airport, an error the article notes is not uncommon for large aircraft.
A significant concern was the crew's lengthy struggle to identify their correct location post-landing, ultimately relying on external help.
The author highlights that modern general aviation aircraft possess superior situational awareness tools that would prevent such blunders, suggesting these technologies should be adopted for larger planes.

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The odd case of a Boeing 747 Dreamlifter mistakenly landing at Wichita’s Jabara Airport instead of its intended destination, McConnell Air Force Base about 7 miles to the south, wasn’t the first time the crew of a mammoth jet made such a colossal positional error.

You might remember our story last year about a C-17 bound for MacDill Air Force Base in Florida that mistakenly landed at the much smaller Peter O. Knight Airport in Tampa. In 2004 at the Farnborough Airshow, I watched as a U.S. B-52 bomber that was supposed to perform a low pass missed the airport and instead did a fly-by at unsuspecting Blackbushe Airport five miles away.