25th October 1960 Commercial Boeing 707 mistakes RAF Northolt for Heathrow and lands.

25th October 1960 Commercial Boeing 707 mistakes RAF Northolt for Heathrow and lands.

This helps the pilots with a visual for landing at Heathrow after a pilot error in 1960 at the time there was a gasometer in South Harrow directly under the flight path of RAF Northolt which after the incident had NO painted on it





18. Mr. Skeffington
asked the Minister of Aviation in what circumstances a jet aircraft intended for London Airport landed at Northolt on 25th October.

§Mr. Rippon
The Boeing 707 was making a radar-sequenced approach to London Airport in conditions of good visibility for a landing. Eleven miles from the airport the pilot reported to the Radar Director that he had the runway in sight and was cleared to make a visual approach. This is the usual practice. The pilot apparently made a mistake in identifying his aerodrome and landed at Northolt.

§Mr. Skeffington
Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that everyone is glad that no harm resulted from this incident, but there is considerable perturbation among not only residents but the local authorities that such an accident should take place? Is it a fact that on this occasion the pilot mistook one of the numerous gasholders, and, if that is so, is it not time that these arrangements were revised so that a tragic event does not occur at some time?

§Mr. Rippon
I think it will be found that this was quite an exceptional case, but as an experiment it has been decided that in future radar will give guidance to aircraft to a point nearer the airport.

 

As soon as I saw the photo Clive, I knew that was the old gasometer at South Harrow. More fond memories.

 

My friend told me an FB-111 landed by mistake at a small civil airport near his SAC base. It was in upstate NY in the late sixties. He said they had to take the wings off of it and move it back to base on trailer trucks.

 

I do recollect a Air Canada commercial aircraft almost landed on the top of aircraft on the San Francisco Airport taxiway when confusing it with their instructed landing runway.

Air Canada near miss: picture shows how close planes came to crashing

No better examples, but of not of human error but due to corruption of Luftwaffe navigation aids by British ECM during the war...the Bristol Channel was often mistaken for the Engllsh Channel when homeward bound to Brittany......quite a number landed at airfields due to this,usually after a night's operation resulting in the aircraft falling into British hands along with their alarmed pilots/crew at the break of dawn.

Abundant accounts have been recorded of pilots been deceived by wartime decoy airfields.There was an account early in the war of a Boston landing at a Hemswell decoy airfield in the nearby Caenby area...the pilot made a perfect landing at night .....found he had landed at a decoy......was found accommodation at the Sergeants' Mess and another crew turned up to fly it out the next day.

 

thank you Tony
local folklore always told the story that the seats and and anything else which could be was stripped out so it could take off again.

 

The old airport at Kai Tak, Hong Kong was notoriously difficult. 4 Nov 93 a China Airlines Boeing 747 overshot the runway and ended up in the sea. Cause was pilot error. Luckily no casualties.
Incredible pictures of airplane near misses show EXACTLY why the world's most dangerous airport in Hong Kong was shut down 15 years ago | Daily Mail Online

Tim

Edit. I'm also reminded of Barra Airport, Scotland where the planes land on the sandy beach. Get the tides wrong and there is no runway!

 

I like the quote from Captain Beale "he had to brake pretty hard"

 

Kai Tak was indeed a difficult airfield to use as many RAF servicemen could testify.Once saw a photograph of a Lincoln on its finals approaching the airfield and the height of the aircraft was lower than a block of flats parallel to its course....an airfield with very high ground on both sides,dominated by low cloud at times and the Chinese border close by which could be easily violated.

RAF Finningley had a short runway,the 12-30, across the main runway as I recollect,now gone and part of it as I think, is the now commercial airport terminal building at the 30 end.Any problems on take off when using the 12 runway could easily result in the aircraft to run out of runway....what awaited such an aircraft,was the possibility of a drop into a sand pit /quarry heading 120.

 

They hail from a by-gone age; one of belching factory chimneys, pea-souper fogs and, dare you recall, mass manufacturing industry.

Gasometers, those huge, round storage tanks that rise and fall with a concertina action, look somewhat out of place in today's more sanitised urban landscape.

So it comes as no surprise that relatively soon they will be gone.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/264609.stm

 

Who needs runways:

Elon Musk tells a room full of Air Force pilots: 'The fighter jet era has passed'

"Alexa..........Please engage the drone defence system, unless it's that new book arriving from Amazon."

 

Many years ago a Vulcan Bomber alighted on the Main runway at Ringway )(Manchester Airport) the pilot having mistaken it for the nearby Avro factory doubtless a negatively career enhancing moment

 

It wouldn't have been the first time the airframe would have been there as they used Ringway to do test ILS approaches/touch and goes during pre delivery test flights.
The other famous Woodford/Ringway misidentification was during one of the RAFA airshows at Woodford. The crowd were told to look to the east to see the USAF F111 approaching, the next thing they heard was the announcer repeating the F111's pilot's farewell. You've guessed it, the F111 had flown his display at Ringway.

 

Indeed brings back memories - I was a Rolls Royce Graduate Apprentice and visited Woodford on a number of occasions including RAFA days. Security was incredibly lax and I was able to use my RR photo ID/security pass to wander around and see all sorts of things I was not supposed to see.

 

In fairly recent times a US military aircraft that was due to display at the Farnborough Air Show actually completed its display over the nearby Blackbushe Airfield.

 

Something similar happened last year over mainland Europe when a whole formation team (Either Dutch or Belgian I think)demonstrated over the wrong town.

There was a German pilot who thought he had this cracked in 1914/15. He'd fly across and bomb a bit of Southern England more or less at random then the next day he'd get a copy of the newspapers from the Netherlands and find our where bombs had been reported as dropped and then complete his report with that as his intended target adding little details like army camp detected. He got away with it for a surprising time.

 

Aircraft Landing, Northolt
HC Deb 12 December 1960 vol 632 c1414
§18. Mr. Skeffington
asked the Minister of Aviation in what circumstances a jet aircraft intended for London Airport landed at Northolt on 25th October.

§Mr. Rippon
The Boeing 707 was making a radar-sequenced approach to London Airport in conditions of good visibility for a landing. Eleven miles from the airport the pilot reported to the Radar Director that he had the runway in sight and was cleared to make a visual approach. This is the usual practice. The pilot apparently made a mistake in identifying his aerodrome and landed at Northolt.

§Mr. Skeffington
Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that everyone is glad that no harm resulted from this incident, but there is considerable perturbation among not only residents but the local authorities that such an accident should take place? Is it a fact that on this occasion the pilot mistook one of the numerous gasholders, and, if that is so, is it not time that these arrangements were revised so that a tragic event does not occur at some time?

§Mr. Rippon
I think it will be found that this was quite an exceptional case, but as an experiment it has been decided that in future radar will give guidance to aircraft to a point nearer the airport.

Aircraft Landing, Northolt (Hansard, 12 December 1960)


Pan American Boing 707 lands at RAF Northolt by mistake

 

Was there not a landing incident at AWRE Aldermaston. I did work there sometime in the 1970's and seem to recall talk of it.

 

I've been trying to find some definitive article that sets out the whole (and real) story. However, the story as related to me when I was an ATC in the tower at Heathrow, was that the PanAm was being positioned for a landing on Heathrow's runway 23, which was significantly shorter than the two main E/W parallel runways (23 is now withdrawn and largely obscured by parking stands) and which took it quite close to Northolt which had a runway 26. Thus he landed at the first runway he saw, possibly expecting to see a rather short runway. As to the gasometer story, I've always wondered if painting the LL and NO on it (note IT) was the result of somebody's sense of humour. Such a sense was quite common in those pre-woke and sorry days.

 

The painting on the gasometer saw it many times South Harrow

this view is from Harrow on the Hill where the planes for tthe Northolt landing would pass over the hlil and fly right over the gasometPainte NO



and the one near Heathrow (Southall) painted LH