A B727-200 fatigued flight crew; after flying all night in weather; were cleared for a visual approach at their destination; but headed toward a nearby airport with the same runway orientation until alerted by ATC.
Synopsis
A B727-200 fatigued flight crew; after flying all night in weather; were cleared for a visual approach at their destination; but headed toward a nearby airport with the same runway orientation until alerted by ATC.
Narrative
On Base leg to Runway 1L; we were cleared for the visual approach; the Captain (pilot not flying) accepted the visual approach to 1L. The First Officer (pilot flying) did not have the airport visually and had the incorrect localizer inbound course set in his HSI. I also did not have the runway insight nor did I recognize that the First Officer had the wrong course set in his HSI. The Captain had identified the wrong airport and do to the improper LOC course set in the HSI; we flew through the final approach course. We were asked by Approach where we were going and if we had the runway in sight. At this point the Captain realized he had identified the wrong airport and I corrected the First Officer's inbound LOC course setting. We were vectored around to re-intercept the final approach course and landed without incident. This situation could have been prevented if the Captain would have insured the entire crew had identified the proper airport before accepting the visual approach. I should have questioned him on exactly that and instructed approach that we did not have the airport in sight. If we would have insured that all appropriate settings in the flight instruments were set; it would have prevented flying through the final approach course. Lack of attention to detail and actually confirming check list items and CRM; was the contributing factors in this situation.
Second reporter narrative
The sky was clear and the visibility was unrestricted. Flight was being radar vectored for a visual approach into Runway 01L. We were given a descent clearance from 4;000 FT MSL to 3;000 FT MSL. ATC asked if we had the airport for the visual approach. Never before having seen the downtown airport; which also has a Runway orientation similar to our destination; I called the airport in sight and accepted a visual approach clearance. We were instructed to contact the Tower as we were headed for the wrong airport. I realized my error upon reaching 3;000 FT MSL and radioed the Tower that I did not have the airport in sight. At this time the Tower instructed us to climb to 4;000 FT MSL and turned us back over to Approach Control. We had tuned and identified the ILS Runway 01L localizer as per our airline procedure which saved us from heading further toward the wrong airport. Approach gave us a heading to intercept the Runway 01L localizer and we made a normal approach and landing. There was no traffic conflict or incident. Upon taxiing in; TRACON issued us their phone number and asked me to call them when we reached the gate. The gentleman was courteous and helpful and informed me that we were not the first airliner to confuse the airports. I feel that fatigue was a factor in this incident. My crew and I had been on duty since the night before. This gave us almost a 13 hour duty day during which we flew 5 legs. Also during the night we also had to deal with a lot of heavy weather that consisted of a squall line that caused us to have to divert to an alternate on our first leg of the night. This made for no hub time or nap time as the logistics required us to keep working through the night. Because of the diversion this added another leg to our night and we were all quite tired by this last leg. Complacency was also a factor as the weather was clear skies and unrestricted visibility.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.