The NTSB is urging the FAA to alter its air traffic control procedures and incorporate ATC software changes to prevent aircraft from landing at the wrong airport. Its recommendations were released yesterday, and are the result of multiple incidents of wrong-airport landings.

These include the Nov. 21, 2013 landing of an Atlas Air Boeing 747 at Colonel James Jabara Airport (AAO) in Wichita instead of McConnell Air Force Base (IAB) eight miles away. The controllers issued landing clearance before the airplane passed AAO. Further, a review of the FAA’s minimum safe altitude warning (MSAW) software showed that it automatically treats aircraft within an airport MSAW eligibility area as an arrival to that airport. The Atlas Air crew incorrectly descended several miles before their planned destination. However, the MSAW software did not warn the IAB controller of the premature descent because it assumed that the airplane was intentionally landing at AAO.

As a result, the NTSB urged the FAA to withhold landing clearances until the aircraft has passed all other airports that could be confused with the destination airport. The Safety Board further recommended that the FAA modify the MSAW software to prevent it from automatically reassigning a flight to another airport based on an observed trajectory.