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Dreamlifter Pilot Confused East And West

The pilot who landed a super-sized Boeing 747 cargo plane at the wrong airport mixed up east and west as he talked to air controllers and said he could not read his own handwriting.

The aircraft came down safely at Colonel James Jabara Airport in Kansas, about nine miles from McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita where it was supposed to land.

The situation was risky as the Jabara runway was shorter than usually needed for such a big aircraft and the airport is tiny and does not have a control tower.

When puzzled controllers told the pilot that he was nine miles north of his intended destination, he made an unusual admission: "Uh, yes sir, we just landed at the other airport."

The controllers then tried to figure out where the plane was.

At one point, a controller read to the pilot the coordinates where he saw the plane on radar. When the pilot read the coordinates back, he mixed up east and west.

"Sorry about that, couldn't read my handwriting," the pilot said on a recording provided by LiveATC.net.

A few moments later, the pilot asked how many airports there are to the south of McConnell. But the other airports are both north of McConnell.

"I'm sorry, I meant north," the pilot said when corrected.

"I'm sorry. I'm looking at something else."

The Boeing 747 Dreamlifter was flown by a two-person crew with no passengers.

Despite some apprehension, the plane, which has a wingspan of 211.5ft and is more than 235ft long, took off safely on Thursday.

Within minutes it landed at McConnell, its original destination, which is adjacent to Spirit AeroSystems, a major supplier for the Dreamliner.

A Boeing spokesman said the company was looking to find out what happened. The Federal Aviation Administration planned to investigate whether the pilot had violated any regulations.

The Dreamlifter is a modified 747-400 airplane that its makers claim can haul more cargo by volume than any other in the world.

"It is the primary means of transporting major assemblies of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner from suppliers around the world to the 787 final assembly site in Everett, Washington," says Boeing's website.