How in the world?

Pilot: "Tower, alpha mike charlie two-three-one-five request approach..."
Tower: "Alpha mike charlie two-three-on-five, wrong airport dipshiat."

I bet it was a really nice cellphone.

Is "cellphone" some kind of Air Force code for "hooker"?

The landing is quite impressive.

Good jorb. He'll be able to tell everybody about it from his new desk job.

tricycleracer: It's pretty awesome that this huge plane was able to land, and then take-off, from a 3,400 foot runway.

Somehow I don't think the military brass was too impressed by this.

buzzcut73: The landing is quite impressive.

Good jorb. He'll be able to tell everybody about it from his new desk job.

Yeah, his career just too a major hit. Even being on the crew of that plane, much less being the pilot, is a plum assignment.

rolladuck: tricycleracer: It's pretty awesome that this huge plane was able to land, and then take-off, from a 3,400 foot runway.

It's got thrust reversers, and after a trans-atlantic flight, he was nowhere near its Maximum Takeoff Weight, so it's not really an incredible feat of aviation.
I've personally watched an entire squadron of C-17's land, turn around, and take off from this airfield. It's impressive, but not miraculous.

Keno, eh? I would have loved to have seen Nevada...

Having General Mattis onboard may have saved this pilot's ass.

It wasn't until the cargo jet was halfway down the runway at Peter O. Knight Airport, a small flight center on Davis Islands, that the crew realized it had missed the intended landing site

Namely when they realized the runway was about a half mile shorter than it used to be.

About halfway down the runway, the crew realized it was at the wrong airport and the co-pilot applied "maximum effort braking" on the smaller runway.

Or in military terms "Holy shiat, we're all about to die, lock them biatches up"

You'd think if they realized they were at the wrong airport, and hadn't begun braking yet, they'd just firewall the throttle and take back off again.

MythDragon: It wasn't until the cargo jet was halfway down the runway at Peter O. Knight Airport, a small flight center on Davis Islands, that the crew realized it had missed the intended landing site

Namely when they realized the runway was about a half mile shorter than it used to be.

About halfway down the runway, the crew realized it was at the wrong airport and the co-pilot applied "maximum effort braking" on the smaller runway.

Or in military terms "Holy shiat, we're all about to die, lock them biatches up"

You'd think if they realized they were at the wrong airport, and hadn't begun braking yet, they'd just firewall the throttle and take back off again.

It takes a while to reconfigure for takeoff. In preparation for a full-stop landing, you'd likely have selected full flaps, armed the autospoilers, maybe even selected autobraking. In a touch-and-go you're not quite full-stop configured, and you're thinking ahead for the reconfigure, carefully controlling your speed, etc. A touch-and-go eats a lot more runway than one would think.

By the time the pilot realized his mistake, there would have not been enough time to reconfigure for a touch-and-go. Flaps take time to retract, airspeed is already bled far below what is normal for a touch-and-go, spoilers are armed to deploy (or already deployed), and engines take time to spool up.

It would have been a shiat-pile of time-eating panic just getting the aircraft ready to takeoff again and even if they had gotten through the steps to do so, the aircraft would have eaten up the remainder of the runway - way before it began to accelerate to takeoff speed. The decision to go flying again would have needed to be made well before it touched down

If they'd opted to do so, it would have likely stalled and ended up in the drink.

rolladuck: Charlie Freak: Keno, eh? I would have loved to have seen Nevada...

If you ever got to see Afghanistan, just substitute newer vehicles, add a couple of taller buildings, and the people speak Spanish instead of Pashtun, and you've got Nevada. Oh, and the gambling is legal and the ladies only wear what clothes they want to.
The desert north of town is almost physically identical to RC-East, and the Vegas area, strangely enough, bares a striking resemblance to provinces around Mazar-i-Sharif in the north.

I've been to the eastern border of Area 51, have pics of the "no photography sign," t-shirt. That was damn near 20 years ago.

Cold_Sassy: /Really, is that the center of your universe??

No, but it is a fairly expensive tool that contains a goodly amount of private data and is my primary means of contacting other people (especially if I'm not at home). I'd be pretty aggravated to lose mine.

Biness: how do you land a wrong airport? why was he flying an airport in the first place?

Years ago, a 727 bound for Daytona Beach instead landed just up the road at Ormond Beach. Took them months to get that plane out of there.

Think it was Eastern.

FTFA: The two were acting at reduced cognitive capacity, according to the report, with the pilot at 79 percent effectiveness and the co-pilot at 89 percent. The report says 70 percent effectiveness is the same level of impairment induced by a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent.

This explains it. The pilot and copilot were both at least 2-3 shots shy of being flight-ready.