Pilots flying Boeing's massive 747 Dreamlifter landed at the wrong airport yesterday and were stuck there overnight.

The modified jumbo jets hopscotch the world picking up sections of the 787 Dreamliner and flying them to the company's factories in Everett, Washington and North Charleston, South Carolina. But last night instead of landing at McConnell Air Force Base to retrieve nose sections made by Spirit Aerosystems, they landed several miles away at Jabara airport. No big deal? Big deal: The runway at Jabara is 6,101 feet long, a bit shorter than the 747's normal takeoff requirements

Pilots landing at the wrong airport is nothing new. It can be an easy mistake, with airports often lined up with each other and especially for pilots flying into unfamiliar areas, and at night. But it is hard to imagine why the pilots on the Dreamlifter — who presumably have flown into McConnell many times before to pick up 787 parts — would not have been very familiar with the Wichita area and the approach procedure.

In the audio recording of the pilot's communication with air traffic control, it quickly becomes apparent the 747 pilots are not quite sure of where they touched down.

"Yes sir, we just landed at the other airport," pilots reply when told that they weren't at their intended airport. At the time, the pilots still weren't sure what the "other airport" was.

Eventually they read their coordinates to the air traffic controller who determined they were at Jabara airport 10 miles to the north. For any pilot who has needed some navigation help from ATC (or has simply been corrected by ATC), the audio is familiar cringeworthy listening. The upside is that these pilots have set the bar rather high for future embarrassing communications with a controller.

Many questions remain — including why the pilots weren't following the guidance for what was presumably an instrument approach, or why they weren't simply following a GPS. There is also the issue of the basic descent and landing checklist, which normally includes checks to determine the pilots are heading for the correct airport based on either approach frequencies, GPS information, or simply comparing the view outside to a map.

A finished 787 nose section awaits loading aboard a 747 Dreamlifter at Spirit Aerosystems factory in Wichita. Photo: Jason Paur/WIRED

Pilots today are often criticized for being lazy by old-school pilots because they often simply type a destination into a GPS — an integrated system, or a handheld unit — and follow a magenta line to the airport. Traditionally pilots would spend more time tracing paths on maps and using radio-based navigation aids. Pilots of large airliners are usually given headings and follow directions given by air traffic control to their destinations, but they presumably should be verifying the instructions along the way. In this case the magenta line would have been helpful.

Once the pilots of the Dreamlifter figured out where they were last night, they also figured out that they shouldn't attempt to take off from the relatively short runway. At 6,101 feet, most airplanes would have no trouble getting off, even fully loaded. But the Dreamlifter isn't a normal airplane, and its runway requirements are a bit above average. Of course the first problem was simply being able to maneuver the airplane on the ground. Boeing drove one of its aircraft tugs (with a police escort thanks to its 13 mph top speed) from the airport where the pilots were supposed to land to help turn the big airplane around.

The Dreamlifter successfully and uneventfully took off at 2:16 p.m. Eastern today with a different crew aboard – presumably, one capable of going where they're supposed to.

UPDATED 5:40 p.m. Eastern to reflect the successful liftoff from Jabara.