Private Jet Almost Lands At Air Force Base In Error In Tampa

SMF - MCC a few miles apart in Sacramento.. both runways 16/34. one night as a controller..UA flight lined up with MCC... me.."UA 123 you can start your right turn to enter left base for SMF runway 16". landing lights a big bend toward our runway.... pilot called us after landing to thank me... back then ..1980 or so... we watched out for each other... couldn't say "hey United you're lined up for the AF Base" cause all our talking recorded...again, we watched out for each other... pilots hid my mistakes too!

How about the Air Force C-17 that landed at Peter O'Knight instead of MacDill - 3000ft runway

Didn’t a (Delta?) airliner actually land at MacDill, years ago?

These things happen, deficient situational awareness for sure, even at widely separated airports.

July 31, 1979 nighttime incident: Western Airlines 44, a 737-200, destination Sheridan, Wyoming, mistakenly landed at Buffalo, Wyoming, 35 miles away.

https://youtu.be/DGs6rauCCkA?si=6fPUqg1eiv5dXkgm

With the winds the way they were, there could have easily been a low altitude wake turbulence encounter during the incident. Glad it all worked out.

There are so many of these but my favorite was Western Airlines landing in a little town called Buffalo WY instead of Sheridan. For years the town had a special holiday named for the Captain. He finally showed up after ten years. He was a big hit.

Or the Dreamliner than landed at a general aviation airport in Wichita, instead of McConnell AFB?

https://www.cnbc.com/2013/11/21/uh-oh-dreamlifter-lands-at-wrong-airport.html

On July 4 1967 TWA flight 30 from LAX bound for CMH accidently lands at Don Scott Field(KOSU)
at 1215 AM.The plane was a Boeing 707-131 non fan. The pilot realized the mistake before the wheels
touched the runway but felt it would be too dangerous to gun the plane back in the air for CMH. There were
not stairs high enough for a 707, some metal rickety stairs were used(quite a jump down) to deplane the 42 passengers
to board buses to take the passengers to Port Columbus(CMH),The flight was to continue to New York and another 707
was flown into Port Columbus for that flight.No modifications needed to be made before the 707 could take off from
Don Scott's 4400 feet runway. Anyone wants too add anything on this topic. The Coffee Shop at the airport was renamed The 707 after this incident.

Those were the days, not these days for sure, nothing is.

Or was it Eastern only?
Hit the button before finishing the question.

Isn’t that what “turning base” call means?

We used to call it Mc Delta Airbase.