Plane Lands At Wrong Wichita Airport, Now Stranded

An airplane landed at the wrong airport in Wichita, Kansas on Wednesday night, missing its intended target by 12 miles.

A Boeing Dreamlifter, which is a wide-body aircraft that is designed to carry bulky cargo, landed at Jabara Airport when it was actually supposed to arrive at McConnell Air Force Base instead.

What made the mistake much more catastrophic, though, was the fact that the runway it landed on was too small, and the beast of a vehicle was unable to take off again.

According to CNN, the plane in question was an Atlas Air 747 Dreamlifter, which is a “modified 747-400 passenger airplane that can haul more cargo by volume than any airplane in the world.”

The 747’s job is actually to transport integral mechanical parts for other huge aicraft. It normally collects these from suppliers across the world, before then taking them back to its assembly plant in Washington.

This didn’t quite go to plan on Wednesday evening, though. Jabara Airport, where the aircraft mistakenly landed, is incredibly small, plus it doesn’t even possess a control tower, and can’t handle jumbo jets. Also, it is also located on the northeast side of the city, apposed to the south of Witchita which is where the air force base is placed.

The City of Wichita, who run the airport, have since confirmed that there was no damage to either the teeny tiny airport or the huge airplane.

The drama didn’t end there, though. The Dreamlifter, which was fully loaded with hefty cargo, needed 9,199 feet to take off, Unfortunately, though, Jabara’s runway is only a measly 6,101 feet long, which left the huge aircraft completely stranded.

No worries, though — Boeing confronted the issue head on and sent out a tug to assist the stricken vessel. Unfortunately, the vehicle broke down on its way there.

It finally arrived there on Thursday morning, but there have been no further updates on whether it actually managed to assist the jinxed Dreamlifter.

Rather than transporting the enormous jet the 11.7 mile journey down to McConnell Air Force Base, it’s now believed that the tug will turn it around instead. According to KWCH, Emergency dispatchers have informed them “Boeing hopes to fly the plane out of Jabara. Boeing has not confirmed the details.”

Let’s not hold our collective breaths just yet though, because as the Scottish poet Robert Burns infamously noted, and the Dreamlifter’s journey has so far proved, “The best laid plans of mice and men….”

[Image via chalabala/Shutterstock]