The crew of an Airbus plane with 39 passengers on board landed at the wrong airport, an accident report revealed today.
The Dublin-based Eirjet flight, being operated on behalf of Ryanair, should have touched down at Derry, the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said.
But the Airbus A320, flying from Liverpool, landed at Ballykelly airfield, an ex-RAF base now used by the British Army, about five miles from Derry Airport.
The AAIB report said air traffic controllers (ATC) had been told by the Airbus A320 aircraft crew: "We've just touched down." ATC replied: "It was the wrong airport, you've landed at Ballykelly."
The A320 crew replied: "I know we have." The passengers and bags were unloaded and taken by road to Londonderry.
Another crew then flew the plane out of Ballykelly. The report said the crew of the A320 had had problems with their instrument landing system and asked for permission to make a visual landing at Derry on the day of the incident - March 29 last year.
The report added that the 59-year-old captain said that once he saw Ballykelly, and not knowing there was another airfield in the vicinity, "his mind-set was that this must be his destination airfield".
The AAIB said that, before the flight, the captain had tried in vain to obtain a copy of the Derry airfield charts. He got them a day after the incident and said that, had he seen them previously, he would have been fully aware of the existence of Ballykelly and would not have landed there.
The report said the co-pilot was not aware of the existence of Ballykelly and stated that he, too, had the same mind-set as the captain.
PA