Five U.S. aircraft, including a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 and an Atlas Air Boeing 747 cargo plane, landed at the wrong airports in recent years due to preventable air traffic control errors, U.S. safety experts said on Monday.
While no injuries were reported in the incidents, which occurred from July 2012 to November 2014, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended changes to U.S. air traffic control procedures to avoid future problems, which can involve aircraft landing on shorter runways — sometimes at night.
The NTSB said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) should require controllers to withhold landing clearance until an aircraft has passed all airports that could be confused with its destination.