TAMPA - The crew of a military cargo jet landed at the wrong airport in Tampa in July, in part, because of fatigue, complacency and a lack of flight discipline, an Air Force investigation has found.
It wasn't until the cargo jet was halfway down the runway at Peter O. Knight Airport, a small flight center on Davis Islands, that the crew realized it had missed the intended landing site, 4.6 miles to the southwest at MacDill Air Force Base, according to an 11-page "Hazardous Air Traffic Report."
The report, obtained by the Tribune under the federal Freedom of Information Act, does not address why the C-17A Globemaster III was flying from Italy to MacDill, nor does it identify who was calling the shots.
But in an e-mail to the Tribune on Tuesday, the head of U.S. Central Command at MacDill, Marine Gen. James Mattis, acknowledged he was on the plane.
Mattis, whose responsibilities include running the war in Afghanistan, also said he sought leniency for the crew.
"It was just human error," Mattis wrote. "I've made a lot of mistakes in my time, and some were real doozies (worse than landing at the wrong airstrip). The Marine Corps kept their sense of humor throughout my checkered career and allowed me to move onward and upward."
The report does not say whether disciplinary action was taken against the crew, part of the 305th Air Mobility Wing based at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.
