Pilot mistakenly lands 737 on taxiway

A KOREAN Air jet with 133 people on board mistakenly landed on a narrow taxiway instead of its designated runway at a provincial airport in Japan today.

There were no aircraft on the 30m-wide taxiway, half the width of Akita airport's runway, and the Boeing 737-900 plane landed safely.

The plane flew from Incheon in South Korea to Akita, some 450km north of Tokyo, officials said.

A return flight, which had been scheduled to take off one hour later was cancelled because of an inquiry into the mistaken landing.

"We feel relieved that there was no injury among the passengers or damage caused to the fuselage," said Hidehiro Tokuyama, manager of Korean Air in Akita.

"We apologise for causing trouble to passengers on the return flight."

The taxiway stretches 2500m and runs parallel to the runway.

It was raining lightly with a fair visibility at about 10 kilometers (six miles) at the time of the incident, officials said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21 ... 96,00.html

A similar thing happened at EWR about half a year ago, with a CO 757 (if I recall correctly).

Does anybody knows what happened later with the pilots?

Izhar

It was in November and they are on the line flying again.... Sounds more like WN pilots and Alaska pilots to me. lol I mean I know that the flaps on the NG 737 create a real high amount of lift and all but were not flying twotters here.

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The taxiway stretches 2500m and runs parallel to the runway.

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Well, most do run parallel to the runway. But one has to wonder how this can happen with today's ILS technology. Maybe at a "provincial" airport in Japan, but EWR? :shock:

Is an NTSB investigation still ongoing? Can't find mention of this incident on their website.

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Originally Posted by uplander

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The taxiway stretches 2500m and runs parallel to the runway.

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Well, most do run parallel to the runway. But one has to wonder how this can happen with today's ILS technology. Maybe at a "provincial" airport in Japan, but EWR? :shock:

Is an NTSB investigation still ongoing? Can't find mention of this incident on their website.

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Here's a link from UPI.
I think that was one of the strangest incidents I have ever heard of.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?S ... 3953-2295r