A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet takes off at Midway Airport in Chicago, Illinois. PHOTO: REUTERS
A Southwest captain, who has worked 15 years for the airline, and a first officer were removed from flying duties pending a federal investigation of the landing, said Michelle Agnew, a Southwest spokeswoman.
The Boeing 737-700 landed at M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport instead of at Branson Airport, the main commercial air strip near Branson, which has a much longer runway, Southwest said in a statement. The airports are about 7 miles apart.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the mistaken landing but had no other comment, spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.
The plane left Chicago Midway Airport on Sunday on a flight to Dallas Love Field with a planned first stop in Branson, a musical entertainment and tourism mecca in southwest Missouri.
Southwest is looking into "all the circumstances" that led the captain to land at the wrong airport, Agnew said.
After landing at the wrong airport, passengers were taken by ground transportation to the correct airport and then were flown to Dallas on another jet later on Sunday, she said. Southwest apologized to passengers, is refunding the cost of their tickets and giving them travel credits, she said.
The airplane took off on Monday afternoon with a new flight crew, Agnew said. It was bound for Tulsa, Oklahoma, for refueling and would go back in service, she said.
The Branson landing marked the second time in less than two months that a pilot landed a jetliner at the wrong airport in the Midwest.
On November 21, a Boeing 747 cargo plane flown by Atlas Air that was supposed to land at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, instead landed on the much shorter runway at Colonel James Jabara Airport, a Wichita city airport.
COMMENTS (6)
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For information of all concerned the airport where the aircraft was scheduled to land has no radar hence the relevant ATC would have had no idea of the planes position. Also the topography of the area is such that three airports with similar runway configuration are only miles apart (They all look alike from the air especially at night). Regardless the error is inexcusable. However it proves that pilots are now so reliant on systems that when it comes to flying the old fashioned way they occasionally may mess up. (remember that a Boeing super transporter landed at the wrong airport under similar circumstances only two months ago).
@Asif: Who said that info is fed during the flight. It is all done before the 'Push Back'.
@RAF: Info is fed into the flight computer before the plane takes off, not during the flight.
This is what happens when you have too many airports.