The Dreamcatcher

We've all had nightmares.  Some involve public speaking with your pants down, while others have that final exam that you didn't study for.  Whatever it is, it's always embarrassing and stressful when you know everyone is watching you.  I imagine this is how the pilots of that modified Boeing 747 Dreamlifter felt as they sat on the runway of Wichita's Jabara airport instead of McConnell Air Force Base, their intended destination.  Oops.

photo by V.White

I first heard the story on NPR as I was driving in to work.  I honestly didn't think it was that big of a deal, and had no idea just how much buzz it would create across the world.  Indeed, we are living in a globalized world and once the media picked up the story here it didn't take long for media around the world to follow suit.  When I got to the office this story was just blowing up all over social media, too.  I had aviation friends from California, Chicago and Florida all calling to talk about this guy's mishap and we all wondered how the heck were they going to get that plane out of there.


Following the story was a cross between watching a beached whale and waiting for a shuttle launch.  There was nervous anticipation in my office.  This great big airplane just sat on the runway of this itty bitty airport as the world waited to see if it would depart successfully.  A side note is deserved here.  Jabara has a six thousand foot runway that's one hundred feet wide.  When put up against most other Kansas airports, it's not that small.  But, it makes for a more exciting story to describe it as such.

I have two monitors on my desktop, each was streaming a different live shot of the scene at Jabara.  When the plane fired up the engines, my two staff members came into the office with a visitor from accounting that had stopped by to actually work.  Little did she know she'd get a show, too!  As the plane rolled down the runway, the three pilots in the office started to cheer and shout out words of encouragement like, "come on baby, pick up airspeed!"  I think we all shouted "rotate" at the same time as there was lift off.  One of the first response posts on Facebook was someone that said, "Well, that was uneventful."  Exactly!  Uneventful is what we wanted. Uneventful was success.  Uneventful meant everyone was safe, including the crew.

To get back to a point I made earlier, it wasn't that big of a deal.  It's not uncommon for a plane to land at the wrong airport, especially in general aviation.  For those non-aviation folks that may be reading this blog, let me assure you that this doesn't mean we pilots aren't safe.  It just happens.  And that it happened in Wichita isn't that surprising, either.  There are around 80 landing locations in the greater Wichita area.  For any pilot that isn't familiar, that can be a rather intimidating statistic and visual perspective.

Now think about this.  What if you were flying at night, in the clouds, and this was your first time to the area?  You're on an instrument approach to your intended destination; you break out of the clouds while on your final approach and you see an airport.  This airport you see is nearly as wide as the airport you're aiming for and you proceed to turn off the autopilot and manually fly the plane down on a visual approach.  You land successfully.  You land a ginormous plane, one of the world's largest cargo planes, successfully on a smaller general aviation airport.  Great job!  But wait, there's more.  It's the wrong airport.  Doh!

If it was a different airplane, this story never makes the news.  The plane would just turn around and take off again.  But it became a big story because it's a big plane.  There was no hiding this mistake.  Just like walking into that classroom in that nightmare, you just got caught with your pants down.  I really feel bad for the pilot.  With only four of these airplanes flying in the world, there aren't many crews or pilots qualified to fly these things.  And by all accounts, except for navigation, this pilot was skilled.

The irony in the story is that he went manual and didn't over rely on technology.  Right now pilots are getting called out for not having enough stick and rudder skill to fly because of an over reliance on auto pilot, GPS and the like.  Then here comes a guy who disengages the GPS and successfully lands that behemoth on a relatively short runway.  Instead of getting kudos he got 15 minutes of fame (or shame) and got to sit and watch another crew depart out of Jabara.  Hi wound, meet some salt.  I for one would love to meet this pilot and buy him a beer.  I'd pat him on the back and tell him he did a heck of a job landing that plane...and then I'd proceed to make fun of him.  Cheers!