Huge C-17 Lands At Wrong Airport

A Grand Entrance

Do you remember that time a C-17 landed on a comutter airport? That incident happened at the tiny Peter O. Knight airport in 2012.

That day, a USAF C-17 cargo plane was on its way to MacDill AFB in Tampa, Florida, from Italy. The pilots of the C-17 were apparently so tired after a 12-hour flight that they opted to land the giant at a small airport.

The flight originated in Rome, Italy and was assigned only an hour before flight time. It was a 12-hour flight that went through six time zones and even included an in-flight aerial refueling!

Funnily enough, the MacDill AFB and the small airport’s runways are both laid out the same way – just four miles apart.  Because of this, this incident was not the first time pilots have mistaken the airport for MacDill.

Putting everything aside, the pilots’ ability to bring the 200-ton C-17 to a safe landing with only that much runway was remarkable, to say the least.