Boeing 747 - 409LCF N780BA incident near Wichita, Kansas

Probable cause

the flight crew's failure to properly identify the airport and runway of intended landing. Contributing to the incident was the flight crew's failure to follow company procedures for crosschecking navigational information and visual cues to verify the airport and runway of intended landing.

NTSB analysis

The captain briefed a visual approach to IAB runway 19L and that they were to back it up with the RNAV GPS runway 19L to IAB. He informed the first officer (FO) that he expected to be high on the profile as he had the three times he had previously flown into KIAB and that it was hard to acquire the runway visually unless the approach light system and runway lights were turned up to bright. The FO did not remember the briefing containing the caution in the company's station guide regarding the three airports in close proximity to KIAB nor to remain above 3,000 feet until west of Beech Field. In post incident interviews, both pilots indicated they were aware of the NOTAM that runway 1L/19R at KIAB was closed at the time of the incident.

When the flight was about 25 miles from KIAB, and the crew contacted approach control as the airplane was leveling at 10,000 feet. Approach control cleared the flight for the RNAV/GPS runway 19L approach and to cross WITBA at 4,000 feet. When the flight was about 12 miles north of KIAB, and 4.6 miles north of KAAO, at 3,900 feet, the controller instructed the flight to contact the tower. The crew then checked in with KIAB tower and was cleared to land on runway 19L. At that time, both pilots stated that a well-lit runway was visible in the approximate location of KIAB, which they believed to be runway 19L. The captain then disconnected the autopilot, discontinued the RNAV approach, and began a slightly steeper than normal approach to the what they believed to be the KIAB runway. Neither pilot crosschecked nor verified the airport position using onboard navigation after that point. The flight crew did not recognize the error until after touchdown when they each realized the runway was shorter than expected and the airport surroundings were not familiar. The local controller had less than one minute to detect the flight's premature descent, and the minimum safe altitude warning software assumed that the airplane was intentionally landing at KAAO and therefore did not issue a warning to the approach controller.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for DCA14IA016 for the full record.