When: Friday, 1:20 p.m. July 20, 2012
What: Boeing Military C-17A Globemaster III – Lands At Small Airport / C-17A – the United States Air Force’s 305th Air Mobility Wing
Where: (KTPF) Peter O’ Knight Airport Davis Islands, Florida / Tampa, Florida — 4 miles southwest of MacDill
Who: Three New Jersey-based crew members on board, for a total of 42 passengers, including General James Mattis (“Mad Dog Mattis”)
Cause: “Pilot Fatigue” cited as the cause — “The two airports are 5 miles apart, to make it even harder for them the two airports have the same runway headings 4 and 22.” [same magnetic heading]
The C-17 Globemaster III was destined for MacDill Air Force Base. It landed at the wrong airport! Due to a number of factors indicated in the investigation, the air force C-17 landed at KTPF, instead of its actual destination, MacDill Air Force Base.
The KTPF runway was about 1/3 of the length of those at MacDill.
The typically needed runway for landing is far greater than provided at Peter O’ Knight — 2,688 and 3,405 feet.
The minimum runway needed is 3,500 feet — 95 feet short at Peter O’ Knight
Mac Dill offers runways as long as 11,421 feet.
C-17, a 400,000 pound aircraft
Peter O’ Knight runway designed for 20,000 pounds
“Maximum Effort Braking” was applied to stop before the runway ran out.
Weeks later the C-17 was set to liftoff and leave the Peter O’Knight airport. A number of steps were taken to make it possible for the military plane to effectively take off from the shorter runway. It was successfully accomplished with about 400 feet to spare.
The MacDill runway is an official alternative for the space shuttle landing.
Quotations:
Responding by email to the Times, [Mattis] used the expression “much ado about nothing.”
He said he put in a good word for the pilot, whose name has not been made public. Mattis noted that he had made his own “colossal mistakes” in earlier years.
“Some young guys made a human error,” he wrote, “and hopefully they’ll recover and enjoy long and illustrious careers.”
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“The young pilot did a good job landing, albeit on the wrong strip,” Mattis said Wednesday.
“”Some young guys made a human error,” he wrote, “and hopefully they’ll recover and enjoy long and illustrious careers.”
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“The account said the Air Force attributed the error to “fatigue, complacency and a lack of flight discipline.” The pilot had lost sleep over a phone left in a taxi. The flight from Italy took 12 hours. Midair refueling sapped crew energy.”
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“Even now, the C-17 incident draws views and comments on You Tube. One video has been seen more than 270,000 times.
“The raw video on our phones is always a hit in a crowd,” Dymerski said. “Sometimes you’ll hear someone trying to describe what happened and you pull out your phone and say, ‘You mean this? Shot it myself.’ “
No one was hurt. The landing strip was unharmed. The Air Force reimbursed Peter O. Knight for about $1,000 in expenses, incurred while the airport was closed to other traffic, Dymerski said.
“Looking back, since there were no injuries or any damage, it has become simply another part of the interesting history of our airport,” he said.
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“On top of that, it’s even better that they were able to takeoff from the same runway . . . They had to back the plane all the way to the start of the runway in order to get enough speed to generate lift, and although there were some tense moments, the plane did successfully complete the short stint to its final destination. . . .”
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“The C-17 touched down, scattering the startled airport crew.
The civilian runway is 3,405 feet long, less than a third the size of the runway 4 miles southwest at MacDill.
About halfway down the runway, the pilot hit the brakes in earnest. The big-footed landing gear left triple streaks of rubber.
“There were actually two sets; one from the landing, and one from when they backed it up,”
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“An Air Force jet is back where it belongs after parking at the wrong airport last week. The massive C-17 landed at the wrong Tampa airport Friday.”
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TAMPA — “Life’s trajectory is imperfect. Some days you get the neighbor’s mail by mistake. Some days a baseball falls in your yard. Some days, it’s a military cargo plane, misplaced on a tiny Davis Islands airport, right beside the dog beach. . . . “
“I’m quite sure the crew was embarrassed,” said Deric Dymerski, president of Atlas Aviation, the company that runs ground operations at Peter O. Knight Airport. “They weren’t on our frequency. They just showed up. “They obviously, well, I’m speculating, mistook it — all appearances are they mistook the airport for MacDill Air Force Base.” . . . “Have you ever been driving down I-275 or I-75 and you realize you’ve just driven by the exit you intended to take, and you realized, ‘I’m just fatigued?’ ” Cox asked. “I suspect on a grander scale we may be seeing something along that line. . . . He gives the crew credit for the safe landing. “Recognize what they did and did well,” he said. “Once they realized they needed to land precisely, stop, do things necessary to keep a full-blown accident from happening, they did.”
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Key Biblical Illustrative Thoughts::
- trials / tests
- landings
- accidents
- embarrassed
- tired / fatigue
- mistakes /
- colossal mistakes
- shorter runways
- errors in judgment
- missed clues
- seemed right
- wrong conclusions
- all is well that ends well
- tense moments
- at the end – safe and sound
- maximum effort braking / hit the brakes in earnest
- looking back – no injuries
- hopefully, they’ll recover
- good job landing, albeit on the wrong airstrip
- lack of flight discipline
- Life’s trajectory is imperfect.
- now the take off / unbelievably short take off
- back where it belongs
Sermonic Example: The writer of the news article did some of the work for you!
The newspaper writer said . . . .
“Life’s trajectory is imperfect. Some days you get the neighbor’s mail by mistake. Some days a baseball falls in your yard. Some days, it’s a military cargo plane, misplaced on a tiny Davis Islands airport, right beside the dog beach. . . . “
Other Information & Links:
Link to Video: https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=c-17+lands+tampa+flordia&docid=608016118121300397&mid=E4A8C71B6338550341E0E4A8C71B6338550341E0&view=detail&FORM=VIRE
Taking Off from Peter O’ Keefe runway — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=805M1svwp_8
https://www.flyingmag.com/news/cause-c-17-landing-too-small-airport-revealed/
https://news.yahoo.com/news/video/air-force-plane-lands-wrong-050000294.html
RhetoricAndHomiletics.Org 