Jet’s Airport Error May Be Linked to Complacency

A Continental Airlines pilot may have been “complacent” when he nearly landed his MD-80 jetliner at tiny Whiteman Air Park in Pacoima after mistaking it for nearby Burbank Airport last month, a federal official said Tuesday.

“When a pilot gets a little complacent, something like this can happen,” Gerald C. Walton, manager of the Federal Aviation Administration’s control tower at Burbank, told a news conference.

On Dec. 12, at 6:47 p.m., Continental Airlines Flight 475, en route from Denver to Burbank, came within a few hundred feet of landing at Whiteman after the pilot was instructed by an air traffic controller in the Burbank tower to land at Burbank, Walton said.

The pilot, who was not identified, was cleared for “a visual approach” to Burbank by the controller, Walton said. The pilot then asked tower personnel to increase the intensity of the runway lights, he said.

Flying Lower

The controller, who was in radio contact with the pilot, saw on his radar screen that the pilot was flying lower than he should have been and realized that the jet was heading toward the wrong airport.

The controller informed the pilot, and the pilot quickly aborted the landing, Walton said, adding that the airliner had descended to between 700 and 800 feet, with landing gear deployed, when it pulled up.

“It’s lucky the controller was alert,” Walton said, “because if he had not been, it could have resulted in a landing on the runway and caused a very hazardous situation. The controller caught it before it became dangerous.”

Walton said the Whiteman runway may have been too short for the MD-80 jetliner, which is a stretched-out model of the original DC-9 and is designed to seat up to 95 passengers. The official said he did not know how many passengers were on the flight.

He added that the jetliner weighs 100,000 pounds, while the runway is designed to support light aircraft weighing no more than 12,000 pounds.

An FAA investigation is continuing, Walton said. Officials have requested records of previous flights made by the pilot to determine whether he was familiar with the route into Burbank and other routes that he had flown.

Continental spokesman Dave Messing said Tuesday that the question of pilot complacency was still open to interpretation.

“That’s not the final conclusion, and the investigation is continuing,” he said. “I think the FAA will have to look at all the facts.”

The southern edge of the runway at Whiteman is only about three miles from the northern end of one of Burbank’s two runways.

The Pacoima facility does not have a control tower, and the FAA has suggested installing a control tower there at the urging of Los Angeles County supervisors.