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A Delta Airlines plane landed at the wrong airport after the pilots made an error in destination.
The plane which was flying from Minneapolis and was due to land in Rapid City, South Dakota but it ended up at the Ellsworth Air Force Base.
According to Daily Express, the American airline has apologised to passengers.
Federal investigators have blamed ‘pilot error’ for causing the Delta Air Lines flight mistake.
The plane which was flying from Minneapolis and was due to land in Rapid City, South Dakota but it ended up at the Ellsworth Air Force Base.
It was gathered that the plane was held on the tarmac for more than two hours before it was allowed to leave for its intended destination.
Both pilots have been suspended as the inquiry has taken place.
The US National Transportation Safety Board said the incident occured last July. A report released by the board this week said the crew didn’t use the instruments available to determine their location.
One factor that likely contributed to the error was that both airport runways face in the same direction, northwest to southeast.
Delta Air Lines has offered a “gesture of apology for the inconvenience” caused to passengers.
It’s not the first time the runway has been mistaken for another.
The same incident unfolded in 2004 when a passenger plane landed at the air force base in error.
Daily Express reports further that an AirAsia pilot made a similar mistake with wider consequences after departing from an airport in Sydney, Australia in 2015.
The plane was due to land in Malaysia but instead it touched down in Melbourne just a short time later.
Landing seven hours earlier than expected, the plane was more than 3,800 miles away from its intended destination.
The pilot had put the wrong coordinates in, which was the start of a combination of errors that caused the incorrect landing.