A Southwest Airlines Co. (LUV) pilot told an air traffic controller, “I assume I’m not at your airport” after landing about seven miles away from his intended destination in Branson, Missouri.
The controller then called regional traffic managers in Springfield, Missouri, and asked if they had seen Flight 4013 land, saying the pilot believed he was at the wrong airport, according to a recording of the conversation released by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration today.
“Are you kidding me?” a Springfield controller responded. The transcripts convey the sense of bewilderment from both the pilot and controllers about the Jan. 12 incident. Landing at night using visual cues and not instruments, the pilot had to slam on the brakes to stop the Boeing Co. 737 at M. Graham Clark Downtown Airport in Branson, whose runway is only about half as long as the strip at the main Branson airfield.
The pilots were taken off flying duty pending the outcome of investigations by U.S. regulators and the carrier into the episode. Flight 4013 from Chicago carried 124 passengers and five crew members, the Dallas-based airline said.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation into the landing, the second such incident involving a U.S. commercial plane in two months. The episodes raised regulators’ concerns that pilots were missing obvious visual and instrument cues while failing to check each other’s work.
