DC-8 to land at Da Nang Air Base...oops

[AVGWarhawk]

During the Vietnam War, a contractor-operated DC-8 landed on the wrong airfield in South Vietnam.

The control tower cleared the DC-8 to land at Da Nang Air Base, and by mistake the co-pilot landed the plane at Marble Mountain Airfield – a remote operating location near Da Nang with a 3200 foot runway.
This event is pretty well-known history among the "Non-Sched" flight crews flying the MAC charters in and out of Viet Nam.
When Seaboard World Flight Operations got the word on what happened, they contacted Douglas Aircraft Corp for advice.

Douglas said "take the aircraft apart and ship it home". FAA said the same thing.

Instead, the pilot and co-pilot elected to try and get airborne on a less than adequate length runway – and succeeded, getting in the air about 300 feet from the end of the runway.

For safety concerns, the flight hostesses were left behind at the remote airstrip – to the delight of the Marines who hadn’t seen a Round-Eye Female up close in months.

Speakers: On.

Click-On: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bvK6enoQDg

[Matador.es]

Such a cool story. I turned 30 a few months ago, do the math, i did not experiance the Vietnam War. In Europe it is not that much known by ppl i gues as it is in the US. Nice 2 see.

[CCIP]

That's one heck of a way to fix a screwup - like real men

Always amazes me how much power there is in modern (or even somewhat-modern) jet engines, and how much safety precaution there is in modern air traffic - I mean heck, considering most international airports have at least 9000ft of runway, flying off 3000ft with one of the biggest planes you can shake a stick at is darn impressive.

[Oberon]

Wow, that's some awesome footage, look at the cloud kicked up by those engines.

Reminds me a bit of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7q3j69-SHM

[gimpy117]

screw the flight manual! were going for it!!

[krashkart]

Boy that sucker sure kicked up the dust, didn't it?