A Boeing 747 jumbo jet bound from Kennedy Airport to an Air Force base in Kansas landed safely Wednesday night – at the wrong airport, eight miles away.
The massive plane – ferrying parts for the company’s 787 Dreamliners – was able to take off about 2:15 p.m. new York time Thursday despite the short runway at the small airport where it landed.
A Wichita TV station had shown photos of the 235-foot jumbo jet on the ground at Jabara Airport, about eight miles north of McConnell Air Force Base, where the wayward jet was supposed to land.
Jabara only has a 6,101-foot runway, far shorter than that those 747s usually take off from.
A Boeing spokesman confirmed in a statement to The Wall Street Journal that the 747 “bound for McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita safely landed at nearby Col. James Jabara Airport instead. We are working to determine next steps.”
Air traffic control recordings show the 747 was cleared to land.
But after landing, the crew radioed the tower, where puzzled controllers
notified them that they may have landed, but it wasn’t at McConnell.
“Yes sir, we just landed at the other airport,” the crew of the 747 radioed back, according to the WSJ.