Right city, but wrong airport

Twice this week, pilots heading for a tiny Davis Islands airport land 6 miles away at MacDill Air Force Base.

By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
Published July 2, 2004

TAMPA - It was a day filled with adventure, but not quite what they were expecting.

Instead of spiraling through the Python at Busch Gardens on Thursday, two German tourists who flew in for the day from Vero Beach found themselves surrounded by guards after mistakenly landing at MacDill Air Force Base.

It was the second time this week that a small plane heading for nearby Peter O. Knight Airport on Davis Islands touched down instead on the base's runway, said Air Force Capt. Danny Cooper, a MacDill spokesman.

The first mistake occurred Monday, he said. Both incidents resulted from pilot error.

"They get confused between our landing strip and Peter O. Knight just to the north and east of us," Cooper said. "Both of our runways are oriented very similarly. There is confusion there."

MacDill and Peter O. Knight Airport are about 6 miles apart and vastly different in size, but both are surrounded by water on three sides, and their primary runways share similar compass headings.

In the two incidents this week, security personnel met the planes on the runway, and the passengers were taken for about six hours of questioning by guards and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, he said. Also, the planes were searched.

Pilots each face $250 in trespassing citations, $20 in landing fees, and they were reported to the Federal Aviation Administration, Cooper said.

"It's the first time it's happened in over a year," Cooper said. "It doesn't happen that often." He said two cases in one week was a strange coincidence.

The two Germans flew in about 7:30 a.m. from a flight school they are attending in Vero Beach, said Trisha Morris of Temple Terrace.

Morris, 46, whose relatives had hosted the young, unidentified pilot when she was an exchange student from Germany, arrived at the Peter O. Knight airport to drive the woman and her partner to Busch Gardens. When Morris got there Thursday morning, officials at Peter O. Knight told her the only plane that was due in had landed by mistake at MacDill, she said. Shortly after, her friend called Morris' phone to explain what had happened.

"We said, "Yes, we heard,' " Morris told her. "She was upset."

The woman is 20 or 21 years old, Morris said. Worried about the growing media interest, Morris declined to name her friend late in the day.

"She's just a wonderful girl," said Morris, who said she was relieved to hear someone else had made the same error just this week. She declined to name the couple. Cooper said the two errors would not change base security policy.

"We maintain such a constant state of readiness, it's not necessarily going to change anything we do," he said.

This week wasn't the first time that MacDill has dealt with intruders or close calls.

On Jan. 5, 2002, Charles Bishop, 15, flew over its air space in a Cessna he stole from a Clearwater flight school and crashed into the Bank of America building in downtown Tampa, killing himself. He left a note expressing sympathy for Osama bin Laden.

In 1984, an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 loaded with passengers landed at MacDill after the pilot mistook the air base for Tampa International Airport.

As for Morris' friend, she and her flight partner never did get to enjoy Busch Gardens. After hours of questioning by authorities, they'd had enough excitement for one day. They got back on their plane and returned to Vero Beach.

- Times researcher Kitty Bennett contributed to this report.

[Last modified July 2, 2004, 01:00:38]