Quote:
Originally Posted by LoadMasterC141  Is it really that easy to land at the wrong airport? |
Yep...
On my Upgrade OE... while flying with a VERY senior Check Airman (No. 2 on the seniority list in CLE) we almost set up for a wonderful visual pattern to Plattsburg (PBG)... when we should have been a bit further southeast in Burlington (BTV).
My checkairman was also adamant that one guy always fly green needles (VOR nav) and have his bearing pointers up... while the other guy should have his magenta (FMS/GPS) needles up. You know... so that we could cross check each other... and not make mistakes.
It was late at night... end of a long day... VMC... we were on a heading for vectors to the visual... he called the airport "in sight" while pointing out the window. I looked out and immediately saw an airport and I agreed... "in sight". We had everything set up for the visual backed up by the ILS. But... by golly we had "the" airport "in sight" and it wasn't until we were practically midfield downwind of PBG that I realized that BTV was actually behind and to the right of us. We then started our 15 mile out "base turn to final" for BTV... right as Center called us to confirm we actually had BTV in sight and not PBG.
We just acknowledged that we had BTV in sight... but needed a bit of extra time to set up for the approach and that was the reason for the "extended downwind".
Moral... Man, I can see how easy it could've happened.
Bob