Pilot of wrong airport plane had no charts
12.01.07
A report into an incident in which a flight from Liverpool Airport to Derry landed at the wrong airport has said the air crew did not have the proper charts for the approach. The Ryanair flight, operated for the budget airline by Eirjet in March 2006, should have touched down at City of Derry, but instead landed at a former RAF base at Ballykelly now used by the Army.
An Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said the pilot did not know there was another airfield in the area. The report says the crew of the Airbus A320, with 39 passengers on board, belived an instrument landing aid system at City of Derry was malfunctioning as what they saw of the runway did not match the instrument readings.
The report said that the 59-year-old captain told the investigation that once he saw Ballykelly, and not knowing there was another airfield in the vicinity, 'his mind-set was that this must be his destination airfield'. The report also said an air traffic controller at City of Derry saw the aircraft and although he thought it 'slightly low' he did not warn the crew about Ballykelly.
The AAIB said that, before the flight, the captain had tried in vain to obtain a copy of the Derry airfield charts. He got them a day after the incident and said that, had he seen them previously, he would have been fully aware of the existence of Ballykelly and would not have landed there.
Air traffic controllers had been told by the plane's crew: 'We've just touched down,' the report said They were told they had landed at the wrong airport, to which the crew replied: 'I know we have.' Another crew then flew the plane out of Ballykelly.
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