When pilots lose their way…….
Apparently the pilots of Atlas Air 4241 learnt this first hand. The plane in question here is the Boeing Dreamlifter which has the distinction of having the largest cargo hold in the world is frequently used to ferry the Boeing 787 Dreamliner parts from various Boeing and its suppliers facilities around the world.
The plane was originally scheduled to land at the McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas but due to pilot error ended up landing in the tiny airport of Jabara, 12 miles away. How and why this happened is still being determined but it seems really shocking that experienced pilots can also lose way and end up at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Dreamlifter needs more than 9000 feet of runway to take off at its full weight but the runway at Jabara is only 6000 feet which means that the cargo of the plane would need to be taken out for the plane to get back to fly again. Also challenging is the fact that being a small airport there are no facilities to tug an airplane of such a size and hence Boeing is arranging for a special tug to be sent from its facilities at Wichita to turn the plane around.
Hopefully the situation can be resolved soon and the Dreamlifter and the airport can be soon back in action. Have you ever seen or heard about any such incidents? Do let me know in comments.
Here’s an example of a C-17 that got lost in Florida last year.
A few years ago a Continental (now United) flight from EWR landed in Brussels when it was meant to go to Amsterdam (or perhaps it was the other way round)
This is not as bad as the C17 landed at peter o’knight in tampa instead of MacDill last year. 3500 feet runway that was crazy.
The good thing with military planes is they are made to handle such situations but here we have a loaded plane which were never designed for such situations. We will get to see today afternoon if it manages to take off or not.
Yeah, remember this one. Thanks for sharing the link.