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21st of October 2020, Runway Identification, Blog #674

With a crew of two and six passengers, a 2001-built Learjet 60 was operating a flight from Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Airport, (CGF/KCGF, Ohio, USA) to Chicago Executive Airport (PWK, Illinois, USA)

The aircraft in its final position against the airport boundary fence. (Source & © NTSB)

The aircraft departed Cleveland at 21:58 lt (local time) and set course for Chicago with the first officer as Pilot Flying (PF) and the captain as Pilot Monitoring (PM). The crew planned for and briefed, a visual approach to runway 34. As a contingency an ILS approach for runway 16 for a possible circle to land on runway 34. The crew had discussed the landing distance assessment before departure and determined that a factored landing distance of 4,790 ft was required.


During the initial approach, the flight crew changed duties, with the captain taking up the role of PF. At this time they were descending through 8000 feet, about 50 miles from their destination. During the approach, the crew navigated around some showers and received clearance to fly a direct course to their destination. During the latter parts of the approach, the crew made several attempts to activate the pilot-controlled runway lighting. Although they were not successful in activating the runway lights, the PM reported the field in sight to the Chicago approach controller, who cleared them for the visual approach to runway 34.

The aircraft in its final position against the airport boundary fence. (Source & © NTSB)

When turning towards the runway the PM transmitted on the common traffic advisory frequency that the airplane was on a right base for runway 34. The captain (unknowingly) misidentified runway 30 as runway 34; visually aligned with runway 30, which had an available landing distance of 3,983 ft; and used the runway 30 PAPI (precision approach path indicator)lights to provide vertical guidance to the runway. At 22.55 lt the aircraft touched down, the ground spoilers deployed, thrust reverse was selected and the brakes were applied. Four seconds after touchdown the PM called out "100 knots and 1,000 feet of runway remaining". The PM immediately realised that they would not be able to stop the aircraft on the runway and steered the airplane left to avoid a road. The aircraft left the runway coming to a stop against the airport perimeter fence. The aircraft was shut down and an evacuation of the aircraft was initiated. There were no injuries to the occupants.

Damage to the aircraft was substantial, however it was repaired and returned to service


Ground crew informed the crew they had landed on runway 30 instead of runway 34. The crew had not realised/recognised the runway alignment error.

Airport diagram for Chicago Executive Airport (PWK, Illinois, USA) (Source and © Acuwik.com)


The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the accident and determined the probable cause(s) of this accident to be:

The flight crew's misidentification of the landing runway, which resulted in a runway overrun and the airplane’s impact with the airport perimeter fence.


The NTSB report on which this blog is based can be accessed by clicking on the .pdf file below;



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