An investigation is underway to find out how a Southwest Airlines flight scheduled to land at Branson Airport in southwest Missouri landed at Taney County Airport seven miles away, the Associated Press reported.
The landing strip at Taney Airport was half the size of Branson Airport's landing strip, causing the pilot to brake unusually hard while landing filling the air with the smell of burnt rubber, according to the AP.
Flight 4013 with Southwest Airlines was flying from Chicago's Midway International Airport to Branson and had five crew members and 124 passengers, according to Southwest spokesman Brad Hawkins, the AP reported.
None of the passengers or crew members were injured and the Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident, according to the AP.
Branson Airport Executive Director Jeff Bourk gave no information on what may have caused the plane to land in the wrong airport and said in a statement "the best thing to do is to leave that to Southwest to answer," the AP reported. "What I can tell you is our airport was functioning normally. The control tower was functioning normally."
According to Bourk, the Branson Airport was in communication with the Southwest pilot and gave him landing confirmation at 6 p.m., the AP reported. The plane landed at Taney County airport at 6:09 p.m.
Branson Airport sent buses to pick-up the passengers at Taney Airport and Southwest used another plane for passengers who were to continue flying to Dallas, the AP reported.
The Southwest plane which accidently landed at Taney was set to fly out "as early as (Monday) morning," Hawkins told the AP.
In the past two months two planes, including the recent Southwest flight, have landed at incorrect airports, the AP reported. This past November a Boeing 747 delivering parts to McConnell Air Force base in Kansas with two crew members landed 9 miles away at Col. James Jabara Airport.
Another landing incident happened last year and involved a cargo plane set to land at MacDill Air Force base in Tampa, Fla., but landed instead at the smaller Peter O. Knight Airport close by due to a confusion involving too many airports in the area, the AP reported.
