Get out of that one...

[Dev One]

I think after the Northolt incident they painted a very big arrow pointing to Heathrow on the top.
It must have been after 1966 as I remember faintly the incident & I was working in Southall on the 'Brain drain' job.
Keith

[PeteP]

Perhaps one of the most infamous examples (in ATC circles at least) is the Northwest DC10 landing at Brussels instead of Frankfurt in 1995.

I was Head of ATC Training at the time and the full report ended up on my desk to see if there were any training issues that could be identified. It actually started from a simple ATC flight progress strip input error which under normal circumstances would have been spotted and put right straight away but, in this case, was not. In fact there were numerous opportunities for both the crew and the ATC units involved to spot and put right the error but all were missed for one reason or another - a classic case of all the holes in the Swiss cheese lining up!

One of the more amusing (if that's the right word) aspects is that, apparently, the passengers and cabin crew could see from the map on the entertainment system that they were landing at the wrong airport - the only ones on the aircraft who didn't know were the flight deck crew.
Pete

[511Flyer]

A few years back, at the time of the Farnborough Air Show, a Stealth Bomber that had flown all the way from the USA, started his display over Fairoaks. After making a few passes over the airfield, and much to the dismay of everybody there, he was redirected to Farnborough.

[Chris Trott]

At the 2 or 3 of these incidences that I've looked at myself, the problem is both ends, but I think a lot of it can be contributed to ATC assuming that the pilots know where they are and what they're doing because they sound confident and instead of questioning them, they assume their equipment is wrong, not the pilots.

Not that I'm blaming ATC for all of it, but I think there's a general assumption among ATC that these guys are paid to be right and that lining up to the wrong airport is such a basic mistake that they'd never make it. Problem is - it's usually the basic mistakes that these guys make because they're working on muscle memory and not actual decision making. The Asiana crash is yet another proof that the people up front aren't always right and that's why you have a system that is designed to help catch those mistakes before they get planes bent and people hurt.

[Airspeed]

......It must have been after 1966 as I remember faintly the incident & I was working in Southall on the 'Brain drain' job. Keith

Well Keith, unless there was another one after I left, I would have to disagree with the year.
I saw it live, and I was in Australia by January 1964. [see near miss below-Lufthansa]

PS I went to school at Southall Grammar; I guess the brain drain started when I left with my huge swag of 5 "O" Levels?
(they must have been sad to see me go, though the headmaster didn't actually say so )
EDIT:
Just copied this from Wikipedia's Northolt history:
On 1 June 1960, an Avro Anson aircraft suffered engine failure soon after take-off from Northolt and crash-landed on top of the nearby Express Dairies plant in South Ruislip. [I saw this, too, there were many sightseers; it was right next to South Ruislip railway station]There were no fatalities.[33] Later that year, on 25 October, a Pan Am Boeing 707, heading for Heathrow, mistakenly landed at Northolt with forty-one passengers on board.[That was definitely it - Pan Am][35][36] A Lufthansa Boeing 707 also attempted to land at the station on 28 April 1964 [obviously in celebration of my birthday-spot on] but was dissuaded by a red signal flare fired by personnel from Air Traffic Control. In the days before navigational aids such as instrument landing systems (ILS) and the global positioning system (GPS) were available, the letters NO (for Northolt) and LH (for Heathrow) were painted on two gasometers on the approach to each airfield, one at Southall for the approach to Heathrow's diagonal runway (coded 23L) and one at South Harrow for the approach to Northolt's runway (then coded 26), in an effort to prevent a recurrence of such errors.[33]

[PeteP]

It was a little before my time at Heathrow but, iirc, the Pan-Am 707 landed at Northolt instead of Heathrow in late 1960.
Pete

Yep, just checked my copy of "Heathrow ATC - The First 50 years" and it was N725PA in 25 October 1960. In the same section (WRONG AIRPORT, p34) the authors also mention a Lufthansa 707 trying to do the same thing on 28 April 1964. The problem was that when traffic closed the localiser for Heathrow's runway 23 from the left, Notholt's runway 26 would come into view first. Within two months of the Lufthansa incident (not the Pan-Am) the letters 'NO' and an arrow pointing to runway 26 were painted on the South Harrow gas holder and 'LH' with an arrow pointing to runway 23L on the Southall gas holder. Both sets of letters were white and 30ft high.
P.

You beat me to it, Mike - you must have posted your EDIT as I was typing my answer!
P.

[Airspeed]

Dontcha jus' hate it when that happens, Pete?
Good to see your presence again.

Oh, nearly forgot-all this talk of "ATC", I was in 14F Squadron Air Training Corps at Northolt, left early 1963 as we were to fly to Australia mid year. It got changed to a ride on the "Canberra" at the end of 1963.

[PeteP]

Ah, I was always envious of members of "F" squadrons, Mike. Mine was 1189 (Portsmouth) - way down the pecking order!
Pete

[PaulC]

How do you think I feel? I'm OC 2431, the numbers don't go that much higher!

Sad thing is, Keighley Squadron was originally formed as 100Sqn, but disbanded not long after the war. It came back into existence as a Detached Flight of Yeadon Squadron, and when re-formed got 2431 as 100 had been given to Nantwich Sqn.

Despite my predecessors appeals to get 100 back it was not to be.

2431 it is then...

[Dev One]

Thanks for the correction fellas - can only put it down to Brain Fade!!!
Keith