A behemoth Boeing air freighter bound for
McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kan., landed Wednesday night at a nearby
smaller commercial airport by mistake, and officials scrambled to come up with
a plan to get it back in the air.
More than 10 hours after the mixup, an airport
official said they had managed to turn around the "Dreamlifter" on
the runway and had determined that it could take off on the shorter runway.
"They've assured us they've run all the
engineering calculations...and the aircraft is safe for a normal departure at
its current weight and conditions here," said Brad Christopher of the
Wichita Airport Authority.
He said it took "more than a three-point
turn" to get the 235-foot-long plane turned around on the 100-foot-wide
runway at Jabara Airport. "They were able to do a very good job,"
Christopher said.
The 747 aircraft, one of the largest cargo
planes in the world, touched down safely at Jabara at 9:38 p.m. CT Wednesday —
eight miles from its intended destination.
A recording of a radio conversation with air
traffic controllers appears to show that crew members were still unsure of
their location even after landing at Jabara, which has no control tower and
doesn't normally handle cargo traffic. Wichita Mid-Continent Airport is the
main commercial airport in the region.
In the recording, one of the pilots can be
heard mistakenly telling the control tower at AFB McConnell that they landed at
nearby Beech Factory Airport, then asking for details of other airports in the
area.
"Let me ask you this, how many
airports...are there?" one of the crew members is heard asking.
Officials were initially worried that the
plane — which weighs 400,000 pounds even when empty — would be grounded
because Jabara’s 6,100-foot runway is about half the length of the runways at
AFB McConnell.
But by morning they had determined there was
enough room for a takeoff and scheduled a noon departure.
The plane, modified from the Boeing 747 to
carry Boeing air parts, is one of only four of its kind.
No comments:
Post a Comment