Interesting approach snafu.

Honestly, I'm surprised you find this that unusual.
In my experience - which is little compared to many here - I have at least
read about enough of these types of cases that, even though I admit it's not
the FIRST thing I would think of, the possibility of sighting the wrong
airport is a real one.

I am often surprised to see how often two or more airports are situated within
a few miles of each other, and when I see it I do wonder how often pilots
break out and dive for the first one they see - though fortunately most
"wrong airport" scenarios do not end in any greater disaster than a bruised
ego.

G Faris

Invariably (about once a year, maybe less) a small aircraft headed
to FTG lands at DEN, 5 nm miles away, thinking it's FTG.

Now, DEN is Class B, has a tower ( BIG tower! ) parking lots that
are always full that strech for miles, lots of really big
aircraft, and that silly terminal with the white things sticking up.
Not to mention runways that are 150 ft. wide.

I'm astonished how they can be mistaken for each other.

We won't talk about the 737 flown by a major airline that almost
landed at FTG thinking it was DEN. Actually, wouldn't have been
much of a problem -- FTG runways are 8000x100.

In a previous article, Blanche said:
Invariably (about once a year, maybe less) a small aircraft headed
to FTG lands at DEN, 5 nm miles away, thinking it's FTG.

Now, DEN is Class B, has a tower ( BIG tower! ) parking lots that
are always full that strech for miles, lots of really big
aircraft, and that silly terminal with the white things sticking up.
Not to mention runways that are 150 ft. wide.

Back when I was a pretty new pilot, maybe 10 years ago, there was a
Canadian pilot with a freshly minted pilots license heading to Oshkosh who
landed at Pearson International in Toronto (CYYZ) thinking it was Brampton
Flying Club (CNC3). The Brampton airport is 12 miles from Pearson and has
two runways, 15/33 3500x75 and 8/26 2500x76. CYYZ has 4 runways, none of
them shorter than 9000 feet. Here's a piece of the VNC (VFR Navigation
Chart, like a US Sectional):
http://www.bramfly.com/airport/vfr_nav.htm


--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
Bull**** makes the flowers grow and that's Beautiful.
-- Unknown, Principia Discordia

"Blanche" wrote in message
...
We won't talk about the 737 flown by a major airline that almost
landed at FTG thinking it was DEN. Actually, wouldn't have been
much of a problem -- FTG runways are 8000x100.

Might be a problem for the passengers that miss their connection.

Any idea what typically happens to them? That's got result in a
certificate suspension, if anything does (anything short of directly
causing an accident, anyway).


Blanche wrote:

Invariably (about once a year, maybe less) a small aircraft headed
to FTG lands at DEN, 5 nm miles away, thinking it's FTG.

Now, DEN is Class B, has a tower ( BIG tower! ) parking lots that
are always full that strech for miles, lots of really big
aircraft, and that silly terminal with the white things sticking up.
Not to mention runways that are 150 ft. wide.

I'm astonished how they can be mistaken for each other.

We won't talk about the 737 flown by a major airline that almost
landed at FTG thinking it was DEN. Actually, wouldn't have been
much of a problem -- FTG runways are 8000x100.