NWA plane lands at wrong airport

After an exhausting session with Victoria's Secret Police, Ed Rasimus
confessed the following:

Gotta say that reflects a total breakdown in situational awareness.

That pretty much sums up the FAA and NWA's conclusion.

Calling them "kinda tumbleweed" is an understatement.

Hey I was being nice calling the SO tumbleweed...she was totally out
of the loop. The FO was very assertive, this guy had been demoted to
FO because of a bunch of **** he pulled as a CA. Things like adding
"Lifeguard" to the callsign going to LAS because a passenger (during
boarding) mentioned his wife was going into labor in LAS.

The somewhat humourous aspect of the Brussels event...the moving map
display in the cabin showed their location to the passengers. So they
knew they were in Brussels even if the crew didn't until after
landing.

This current episode at Rapid City/Ellsworth has me stumped. I had
assumed this was a DC-9 incident at first blush.

The 757 software has the ability to display all airports with at least
a 5000' runway. I'd imagine the A-320 can as well, so unless they had
a "map shift" due to a faulty ADIRU (think INS) I don't know how they
missed the airport with the magic ****.

I'm guessing that the CEO of NWA will want these two guys fired...he
wanted guys fired for leaving engines running at the gate (there more
to it than meets the eye, sorta).

Robey

On Sun, 20 Jun 2004 23:45:41 GMT, Robey Price
wrote:

Hey I was being nice calling the SO tumbleweed...she was totally out
of the loop.

Say no more, lest we stir the dark forces of political correctness.

The somewhat humourous aspect of the Brussels event...the moving map
display in the cabin showed their location to the passengers. So they
knew they were in Brussels even if the crew didn't until after
landing.

This current episode at Rapid City/Ellsworth has me stumped. I had
assumed this was a DC-9 incident at first blush.

The 757 software has the ability to display all airports with at least
a 5000' runway. I'd imagine the A-320 can as well, so unless they had
a "map shift" due to a faulty ADIRU (think INS) I don't know how they
missed the airport with the magic ****.

Was about four years ago that a 727 headed for Hayden CO (serves the
Steamboat Springs ski area) landed about 12 miles long at Craig CO.
Hayden Regional is atop a mesa with long, wide, ILS-served runway and
little or no development surrounding. Craig Muni is almost in town,
surrounded by trees and the Yampa River--short, narrow and ringed with
small airplanes.

Got it stopped in time, but had to shut down and bus the PAX to their
destination. Special crew came in, along with fuel bowsers to download
fuel to minimum weight. Flew it out over to Hayden. Big event for the
locals to see the big jet come to town.

Of course, the 727 isn't known for a lot of whiz-bang technology like
moving map displays.



Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8