[WalterBright]

My family was stationed near London for a time. My father told me later that once an airline pilot mistook a WW2 strip for the Heathrow runway (!) and landed there, using every inch of it to get it to stop. The strip was too short to take off from, so what to do?

They stripped everything off the airplane they could. Seats, interiors, galleys, everything. They put in just enough fuel to hop over the trees to Heathrow. He said they did it, but barely.

[fhars]

Spantax used to do that in Hamburg, scroll down to „Incidents“ on https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_Finkenwerder_Airport

The interesting thing is that „the end of the runway“ is actually a major river.

And a Vuelling flight almost made the same mistake two years ago (but today it would be less critical as they have extended the runway to accommodate A380s some time ago).

[netsharc]

I'm trying to google a similar "we landed here but now it's too short for us to takeoff again" story which IIRC happened in California, but I can only find this incident that happened with a cargo plane in Kansas: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/giganti...

[therockspush]

This has happened more than a few times in Wichita. They are usually aiming for KICT but hit other airports. We had to file a flight plan out of Jabara for a private jet that was actually trying to land at KICT for maintenance. Didnt make the news but we did have to plan for the minimum amount of fuel.

[jsjohnst]

Sorta similar situation happened a few years back in Wichita Kansas. A 747 Dreamlifter (what Boeing uses to fly 787 fuselages) landed at Jabara airport (corporate jet airport) instead of the Air Force base 9 miles south of it. The videos online don’t give it justice, but from folks I know there, it was a frightful takeoff.

[uxhack]

I think you referring to a Pan Am 707 landing at RAF Northolt in 1960 https://abpic.co.uk/pictures/view/1001607

[WalterBright]

Wow! That looks like it. Thanks!

How did you find it?