I
found an incident that happened on July 20th, 2012. A C-17 globe
master was headed to MacDill air force base (KMCF) ended up 4.6 miles to the
southwest at Peter O. Knight airport (KTPF) a small flight center in
Tampa. Both airports have a runway going
in the same direction “22.” But unfortunately KTPF has a runway length of
3580ft and KMCF the intended airport has a runway length of 11421ft.
One
of the major hazards and complications in landing at the wrong airport is
runway length. If the landing runway could be too short and the aircraft could
go off the end of the runway. Another hazard could be taking back off after
landing at the wrong airport. The runway could be too short to take off and the
aircraft would be stuck there. Also there is possibility for a runway
incursion. The pilot could be communicating with the intended airport and
landing at the wrong one and not knowing if the runway is actually clear.
The
main cause for this particular incident was fatigue because of the long flight
from Italy to Tampa and the lack of sleep from the days previous. But I believe
that this incidence shouldn’t occur as often as they have been. Mainly because
of the advancements in technology and GPS to help pilots navigate.
I
agree with Southwest, these pilots should be suspended until after the
investigation. Mainly because there could have been extenuating circumstances
that southwest was unaware of. Obviously if drugs or alcohol were involved then
I believe the pilots should be fired but there are other reasons that could
have contributed to this incident in which I would just suspend the pilots.
I'd like to start off by saying you hit all the points, but it would have been nice if you expanded on some of them a little more in detail. You give good main points, but there is not enough detail to back them up. I would recommend expanding on one or two main points next time.
ReplyDeleteYou bring up an interesting point about fatigue...that the pilot would have been suffering from lack of sleep from the previous days. How do you suggest that this type of fatigue be addressed (i.e. how could this be regulated?)?
ReplyDeleteThat is one thing I seam to not be able to grasp as well. How can you have GPS and Navigation guides that takes you directly to the place you would like to go and you find your self somewhere else? This is very dangerous and as you stated very surprising more runway incursions don't happen from this.
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