[MilCom] Fwd: [MilRadioComms] C-17A lands at wrong airport

[AllanStern at aol.com]

Air Force officials are trying to figure out why an Air Force C-17  
Globemaster III cargo jet heading to MacDill AFB instead landed at Peter O.  Knight 
Airport in Tampa FL this afternoon. 
The plane, flown by a crew from the 305th Air Mobility Wing at McGuire AFB 
in  New Jersey, was arriving from Southwest Asia carrying 23 passengers and 
19 crew  when it made an "unscheduled landing," according to Sgt David 
Carbajal, a  McGuire spokesman. There appears to have been no damage to the 
aircraft or the  airport, said Carbajal. 
Air Force officials still do not know why the plane landed at the small  
civilian airfield on Davis Islands. The incident, said Carbajal, is under  
investigation. 
The Air Force is planning to move the plane, said Carbajal, who did not  
immediately have details about how or when. 
The flight was in support of U.S. Central Command, based at MacDill, 
Carbajal  said. 
Mistaken landings at nearby airfields are not unheard of across the 
country,  but most occur at night by commercial or general aviation pilots. In 
1980, a  Delta Air Lines Boeing 727 bound for Tampa International Airport with 
90  passengers landed safely in bad weather at MacDill. 
The main runway at Peter O. Knight is 3,580 feet long and 100 feet wide,  
aligned in the same direction as MacDill's runway that is 11,421 feet long 
and  151 feet wide. 
An unloaded C-17 is able to take off on an austere runway 90 feet wide and 
as  short as 3,000 feet load, depending upon its fuel load and local 
temperatures,  according to various Air Force and Government Accountability Office  
documents. 
Ryan Gucwa, a pilot, was getting ready to get in his Piper Navajo and take  
off from the airport when he looked up and saw "this huge C-17 coming in 
over  the top of the shipping port." 
Seeing military airplanes over Peter O. Knight was not unusual, Gucwa said, 
 but "this was only 100 feet off the ground and that is bizarre. Once the 
wheels  touched the ground, I was terrified that there was no way to stop in 
time." 
The nose landing gear of the cargo jet stopped about six to 10 feet from 
the  end of the runway, said Gucwa, who took cell phone video of the landing. 
The plane, he said, had markings from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey. 
 Officials there would not immediately comment. 
The landing surprised people who work in downtown Tampa office towers. 
Frank Kilgore, a pricing manager for Hapag-Lloyd, an international shipping 
 firm with office in the Suntrust Tower, said he heard someone in his 
office yell  that the plane was on a final approach to the small municipal 
airport on Davis  Islands. 
"I knew immediately that it was not right," Kilgore said. 
Commercial real estate broker Jason Donald was looking out his office 
window  in a downtown skyscraper and saw the plane pass low over the fuel tanks 
in the  Port of Tampa, then turn south towards Peter O. Knight. 
"I face directly over the Bay and saw that plane come in so fast and 
thought  to myself 'Never in a million years is he going to make it,'" Donald 
said. "I  was waiting for flames." 
There seemed to be a moment when the pilot realized the mistake, Donald 
said,  but too late. 
"He was carrying so much speed, I thought, 'This is not going to happen,'" 
he  said. "If his front tire was not in the grass at the end of the runway, 
he was  darn close." 
It took about 17 seconds from the time the cargo jet's wheels touched down 
to  time it came to a screeching halt near the end of the runway, according 
to video  taken by Ryan Gucwa, who was at the scene. 
The Peter O. Knight Airport is not equipped with a control tower. Aircraft  
rely on radio communications for landings there. 
Federal Aviation Administration controllers at Tampa International Airport  
provide approach control to aircraft landing at MacDill and hand off 
aircraft to  the MacDill tower when aircraft are about 10 miles out. 
Peter O. Knight Airport is temporarily closed as the Air Force works to 
move  the plane, Tampa International spokeswoman Janet Zink said. Neither the 
C-17 nor  the airfield was damaged, airport and Air Force officials said. 

AL STERN  Satellite Beach  FL
AllanStern at aol.com
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