A Delta Air Lines jetliner with 130 passengers on board landed at the wrong airport in South Dakota Thursday evening, said a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident.
The Delta A320 landed at Ellsworth Air Force Base at 8:42 p.m. Central Time Thursday, when its destination was an airport in Rapid City, board spokesman Peter Knudson said Friday.
Ellsworth Air Force Base is about 10 miles due north of Rapid City Regional Airport. The two airports have runways that are oriented nearly identically to the compass, from northwest to southeast.
Delta Flight DL2845 had departed from Minneapolis. A passenger interviewed by the Rapid City Journal said she and her fellow passengers waited about 2½ hours in the plane at Ellsworth, where they were ordered to pull down their window shades as military personnel walked through the cabin with at least one firearm and a dog.
A spokeswoman at the base told FoxNews.com on Saturday that an Ellsworth aircraft approach team, which is responsible for the 40 miles of air space around the base, was in contact with the pilots, which would verify the craft was not hijacked.
However, base officials, citing security reasons, declined to answer earlier questions from the Associated Press regarding the specific procedures followed during the incident.
Source FoxNews
