NWA Lands At Wrong Airport

Ever see those commercials for a leading low-cost carrier where someone does something stupid and the announcer asks, "Do you suddenly wish you were somewhere else?"

Imagine if you will, then, the angst of the flight crew aboard a Northwest Airlines Airbus A319 when instead of finding themselves on the tarmac at Rapid City Regional Airport, they were on the ground at Ellsworth AFB (SD).

As soon as the aircraft touched down, passengers said they sensed something was amiss up front. They heard no "Welcome to Rapid City," or "Please remain in your seats...." Instead, they heard nothing for about five minutes.

Finally, "(the pilot) hemmed and he hawed and he said, 'We have landed at an Air Force base a few miles from the Rapid City airport and now we are going to figure out how we're going to get from here to there,'" said passenger Robert Morrell in an interview from the cabin of the wayward jetliner. He was speaking with the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

So the 117 passengers aboard the A319 sat... and sat... and sat....

Military officials ordered passengers to shut their window shades for security reasons (they were, after all, at a major military installation) and questioned members of the crew. In fact, the original flight crew was taken off the aircraft and another was put on board to make the short hop from Ellsworth to Rapid City Regional.

"Our investigators will be talking to the pilots, also the control at Northwest, also air traffic control over the next several days to weeks, to find out what happened and why," said FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Corey.

Northwest isn't saying much. In fact, the airline isn't even admitting its pilot may have made a mistake.

"The situation is under review and we have nothing further to add," said Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch. "We're not acknowledging it was pilot error."

But Dr. Morrell said it was pretty evident from behind the locked cockpit door that somebody, somehow screwed up.

"Everyone is surmising it was pilot error. The presumption is that the pilot just landed at the wrong . . . airport," he said.

Lt. Christine Millette agreed with the passengers' assessment. "He was looking toward an airfield, saw one and thought it was the other. As far as we knew, they were on track, and then they weren't." Indeed, she said base controllers were just as surprised as the fligth crew appeared to have been. "As they were coming out of the clouds, they were just about to land and they realized they were at the wrong airstrip," she said. "They said (to air controllers), 'Hey, we are landing' and within seconds they were on our airstrip."

FMI: www.nwa.com, www.ellsworth.af.mil