Boeing 747 "Dreamlifter" landed at the wrong Wichita airport last night...

[L8APEX]

Ever get stuck in the snow... I imagine this is worse.

Imagine landing a loaded, heavily customized Boeing 747, designed to carry large sections of 787's, at an airport 8-12 miles from where you were supposed to land, oh and the runway is ~6,100ft long which is shorter than the 9,199 feet needed for a heavy takeoff...
Thank god he burned so much fuel flying from JFK, because the "Dreamlifter's" minimum landing distance (heavy) is 7,000ft. He woke up lots of people last night when he hit the brakes hard, and had reverse thrust going full blast.
Here is the cockpit audio between them and McConnell AFB's tower. lol

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?ur...o_play=false&show_artwork=true&origin=twitter
(@ 5:25)

(747DL) We just had a twin engine uh turboprop go over the top of us...
(Tower) Giant "Heavy" 4241 it appears you are at Jabara
(747DL) Uhhhh... Say again?
(Tower) Giant 4241"Heavy" we saw the plane on the radar and it appears you are at Jabara airport.

(747DL)"Jabara....?"
:uh oh:

WICHITA, Kan. -
A Boeing Dreamlifter jumbo jet has taken flight after accidentally landing at Jabara Airport late Wednesday.


A team of Atlas pilots came in from New York to pilot the plane down the runway, which is normally too short to handle a plane of that size.

The Dreamlifter lifted off at around 1:15 pm. Not long after takeoff, the plane landed safely at its original destination, McConnell Air Force Base.

No one was hurt and the plane and airfield were not damaged by the landing or the takeoff.

Brad Christopher, airport authority, said preliminary evaluations show no damage to Jabara's runway. A couple of lights blew over during take off, but it took crews minutes to replace them.

Christopher said it took the plane about 4,500 feet of Jabara's 6,100 foot runway to take off.

Statement from Boeing on the Jabara incident:

A Dreamlifter bound for McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita landed inadvertently but safely yesterday evening at nearby Colonel James Jabara Airport instead. There were no injuries or damage to the airplane.

The airplane can take off from that runway and is in position to depart later today. From there, the plane will then land at McConnell Air Force base and unload, as planned.

Boeing contracts with Atlas Air to fly the airplane. We are working with Atlas Air to determine the circumstances.

Doug Alder - Media Relations - Boeing Commercial Airplanes

--------

A Boeing Dreamlifter, scheduled to land at McConnell Air Force Base, instead landed at Jabara Airport late Wednesday night.

The City of Wichita tweeted early Thursday morning no one was hurt and no property was damaged.

Our photographer is at 21st and Webb where a tug has broken down. The tug is supposed to turn the Dreamlifter around. Emergency dispatchers told us Boeing hopes to fly the plane out of Jabara. Boeing has not confirmed the details.

Audio from LiveATC.net says McConnell AFB gave the plane clearance to land, but the pilot landed at Jabara Airport. Jabara is 9 miles north of McConnell. You can hear the Dreamlifter pilots talking to the McConnell's tower controller saying, "Ahh, yes sire, we just landed at the other airport." That was at 9:20 p.m. (CST) Wednesday.

ATC recording shows the pilots thought they were at Beech Field, not McConnell. Coordinates show they actually landed at Jabara.

Flight Aware reports Atlas Air Dreamlifter pilots have flown to McConnell at least 26 times since August 23, 2010.

The Dreamlifter is a 747 with a cargo hold custom enlarged to carry large parts for the 787 Dreamliner. It is 65,000 cubic feet. Boeing says Dreamlifter's cargo hold is the largest in the world, by volume.

A Dreamlifter is supposed to need a runway 9,199 feet long to take off at maximum takeoff weight, and 7,000 feet to land at maximum landing weight. The runway length at Jabara is 6,101 feet.

Atlas Air Flight 4241 was arriving from JFK Airport in New York. The FAA says it investigates "any deviation" and is investigating this incident, "which is standard procedure".

Boeing released the following statement:

"A Dreamlifter bound for McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita safely landed this evening at nearby Col. James Jabara Airport instead. We are working to determine next steps and will have additional information in the morning."

I can't imagine how the pilot and crew landed at Jabara unless they relied on GPS too much.
Video: Pilot Brett Harris explains 3 E. Wichita airports | Local News - Home

Here is a comparison

AAO - Colonel James Jabara Airport | SkyVector
IAB - Mc Connell AFB Airport | SkyVector

Although visibility would have been bad last night I can't imagine landing a heavy at the wrong field.
There are 3 major airports on the east side of town that follow the same pattern. Jabara (General aviation), Beechcraft, and McConnell AFB/Spirit(Boeing) as well as a small strip for Cessna just north of McConnell.
I'm a bit familiar with the airspace because my grandfather's field "Beyer Farm" (06SN) was just 2.5 mi SE of McConnell. And the runways are parallel
At night on visual approach to Jabara, McConnell is still the brightest and biggest field in view. Typically even flying Visual/IFR you can still see it.

They were able to safely takeoff and land at McConnell this afternoon, I imagine he was running on fumes since it looked like they were airborne in 4500ft. Aside from a low ceiling the conditions were really good for getting that big of a bird up in a hurry.
They had to close off Hwy K-96 because with the jet wash would have thrown cars like toys.

Here is the video of her taking off

Boeing Dreamlifter takes flight in NE Wichita | Local News - Home

 

[CM5878]

Sure is a strange looking plane

 

[VirtualSVT]

2-3 crew looking for jobs today.

 

[mossbergman]

lol watched it happen live. also heard the transcripts from the other night. what a jackass

 

[bdcardinal]

Sure is a strange looking plane

My grandpa used to work for Aero Spacelines that made the Guppy planes, those were weird looking.

 

[CobraBob]

I heard about this on the news this morning. Wow, that could have been a bad story. Thankfully no people were hurt, nor was there any damage to the plane or runway. Not so good that the Atlas crew had to come to the rescue and get the plane outta there. LOL.

 

[Coiled03]

God damn, that's an ugly bird.

And I'd like to hear the pilots explain what happened, lol.

 

[Mr.Bolt-on]

LOL I wanted to drive over there to look at the plane since I'm in Wichita now. I know McConnell is a small Airforce base, but come on it's not that small. Funny thing I was having a conversation about the same thing yesterday, and what do you know... It happens the very next day.

 

[Digital]

They park that fat cow at MIA right by where I live since atlas has a massive maint area at the airport. I see it on the regular just chillin in the corner.
They also have the new airbus flying to germany all the time. Fun to watch that thing take off or land as I'm driving down the highway.

 

[James Snover]

That could have happened to anyone. Those of you thinking "That never would have happened to me," have probably never been in a position of responsibility where you could have made a mistake like this.

This reminds me of an old flying joke: A jet is coming in for a landing. They see the runway, and the co-pilot says, Wow, that runway sure looks awful short."

The pilot says, "You're right. Give me five degrees flaps and slow down to half throttle."

As they get a little closer, the copilot says, "Cap, that runway is really short!

"Cut the throttles to zero, maximum flaps, air-brakes deployed!" the pilot says.

"Cap, we're not going to be able to stop! That runway is way to short!"

The pilot, now in a panic, shouts, "Maximum reverse thrust! Brace for impact!"

By some miracle they get the plane stopped without going over the end of the runway. The co-pilot says, "Wow, Cap, this runway sure is short, but would you just look at how wide it is? It must be a mile wide on either side of us!"

 

[chrisheltra]

I see this plane all the time flying around charleston.

 

[cobrakidz]

So I take it they were talking to the tower of one airport and landing at another? Are all runways numbered the same? Don't they look for the numbers when landing?

 

[L8APEX]

No visible damage to the runway, but they think it really shortened it's life. The heaviest aircraft that have used Jabara before today are maybe 60k lbs. The Dreamlifter is over 400k lbs.
it took out quite a few navigational lights, but those are easy to fix.

McConnell is "small" since it has always had to share it's space with a huge Boeing aircraft plant building bombers and commercial jets. It was originally just Wichita's airport and Stearman/Boeing before the base opened in the 50s.
Boeing/Spirit basically has the west side and the air force has the east side. But with all the facilities including 2 12k ft ruways and even more tarmac. It's still more of an aircraft plant with a huge tanker wing than an air force base.

I was stuck at the office, oddly enough just a few miles west of McConnell. But everyone here is near some sort of airport or strip...you cannot throw a rock without hitting something aircraft related in Wichita lol.

They were speaking to McConnell's tower while landing at Jabara, part of the reason they were surprised to have a turboprop go over them.
I believe here in the next few weeks we'll hear how close they were to colliding with other aircraft. I lost a friend who crashed in his '50s single engine Cessna near KC. He ended up being staked too close behind a C-130 in a landing pattern, when he hit the wake it flipped him inverted at low altitude.
Thank god no small aircraft ended up hitting the dreamlifters wake. If it was not at night Jabara would have been really busy with general aviation traffic.

MCCONNELL (IAB), ICT(Mid-continent), AAO(Jabara) have active towers.
The runway at Jabara is 18, they were cleared for McConnell 17L (yes IAB has two parallel 12k ft runways vs a single one that is half as long and only 100ft wide. ) The crew initially thought they were at Beechcraft.... which is yet another field, a bit further south but still several miles north of McConnell.

 

[Lemmiwinks]

Almost uglier than that "Goose" or what ever it's called.
Can't be arsed to google for the correct name but I think it's one of Airbus' airplanes.

Could've gone pretty bad that mistake. Good thing nobody was hurt.

 

[SNCBOOM]

Almost uglier than that "Goose" or what ever it's called.
Can't be arsed to google for the correct name but I think it's one of Airbus' airplanes.

Could've gone pretty bad that mistake. Good thing nobody was hurt.

 

[Camaro_94]

How do you **** that up as a pilot?

 

[SID297]

Ooops

 

[bdcardinal]

This is what my grandpa worked on. He was working for Boeing in Cape Canaveral on the Apollo program and they needed help building these. They used the Guppys to transport sections of the Saturn V rocket that he was working on. Literally I have Guppy and Saturn V stuff all over the house from when he worked there.

 

[GOTSVT?]

Ooooppppps

 

[Planter]

oh and the runway is ~6,100ft long which is shorter than the 9,199 feet needed for a heavy takeoff...

Thank god he burned so much fuel flying from JFK, because the "Dreamlifter's" minimum landing distance (heavy) is 7,000ft. He woke up lots of people last night when he hit the brakes hard, and had reverse thrust going full blast.

Here is a comparison

They were able to safely takeoff and land at McConnell this afternoon, I imagine he was running on fumes since it looked like they were airborne in 4500ft. Aside from a low ceiling the conditions were really good for getting that big of a bird up in a hurry.

if it needs x amount of feet to take off, then how is it that it was able to take off in only 4500 feet?

either those estimates are really off, someone doesn't know the capabilities of their own airplane or (and I presume this is the answer) they are that way for safety standards? :shrug:


now I'm curious, what would have been done with this plane if it couldn't have taken off and made it to McConnell or another airport?