Thread: C-17 lands at wrong airfield

Giant military cargo plane lands at small Tampa airport

Full USAF statement from earlier Friday afternoon:

An Air Force C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft carrying 23 passengers, plus a crew of 19, landed at Peter O. Knight airport near Tampa, rather than at the planned destination of MacDill Air Force Base, about four miles away.

The aircraft, flying in support of U.S. Central Command, was apparently

undamaged and there were no injuries. There appears to be no damage to the airfield. In concert with airfield officials, the Air Force is planning to move the aircraft to allow Peter O. Knight airport to re-open.

The incident is under investigation.

Thats quite a SNAFU...it will reflect on their OPR/EPR
Officer Performance Report/Enlisted Performance Report


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How does something like this happen?

Originally Posted by jibaholic101

How does something like this happen?

Lack of attention, I guess. I was flying into an untowered airport last month and almost landed at a private field that had a runway of the same heading, but was about 3-4 miles south of the intended landing airport. I just saw a runway going in the right direction and flew to it!

Extreme lack of attention. How do you confuse a 3xxx' runway w/ a 11,421' runway?!?

At what point did the crew say, "Geez, I wonder where are all the KC-135s are?"

Maybe "Man, I know the TACAN is on the field but why is the DME 5 when we're on 1-mile final?

Or "Gosh, this picture of MacDill only has Rwy 22 depicted. I wonder when they built Rwy 18?"

Haha. Used to live right around there. That airport is tiny! I'm sure it was a sight seeing this guy land there.

that same thing (different airports) has happened a couple times at the airline I fly for. I cant imagine how embarrassed the crew had to be when telling the passengers what happened!

Amazing how the pilot is able to stop the plane on such short runway.

Originally Posted by Havoc

Amazing how the pilot is able to stop the plane on such short runway.

Pssht it's a Globemaster - that plane was built for short-field tactical landings. Unfortunately, even with all that automation there's no system to tell the pilots they're landing at the wrong airfield (or with the gear up, but that's another incident).

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