It’s a short domestic flight from Paris to the port city of Brest in Brittany, north-west France. But the connection with flight number AF 7738 had to make a 360-degree turn shortly before landing on September 19, as the flight history on the flightradar24.com website shows.
What happened? The Air France Airbus A321 took off from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris in the afternoon with a half-hour delay and headed west. Shortly before reaching its destination over Brittany, the jet descended and flew a 180-degree turn to land in the opposite direction.
But when the machine was only 500 meters high and the pilots saw the runway in front of them, they realized that it was the wrong airport: instead of flying to Aéroport Brest-Bretagne, use the three-letter code BES , they headed for the runway of a military airfield. This was the base aéronautique navale de Landivisiau with the three-letter code (LDV).
The military base of the French naval aviation is located 25 kilometers from the actual airport in Brest. Both slopes run in the same direction. According to the online newspaper “Ouest France”, the airline Air France confirmed the wrong landing approach and the go-around maneuver associated with it.
The crew reacted immediately and aborted the descent “before reorienting their flight towards Brest Airport. The aircraft landed at Brest Airport at 6:26 p.m. on schedule.”
Just a few days earlier, on September 10, the crew of an Airbus A319 operated by the Spanish low-cost airline Volotea had made the same mistake and initially headed for Landivisiau Airport instead of Brest.
Also read:
– After a fight in the cockpit: two Air France pilots suspended
– Air France plane: Explosion rocks Boeing 777 shortly after take-off
– Boeing 777 from Air France. Pilot error was cause of control problem on landing in Paris
