Word: runway
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...most cautious and experienced pilots have been known to make just such errors. Example: the St. Louis crash that killed Astronauts Elliott See and Charles Bassett. Pilot See, having missed his first pass at the runway, told the tower that he planned a second instrument-landing approach in his T-38 jet trainer. He inexplicably continued to fly a visual pattern and made a wide turn just below the overcast, ran into a patch of fog, apparently lost orientation, slammed a building-and just barely missed demolishing the room where all the space capsules for the next four Gemini flights...
...simply argued that the proper party to sue was the Nice chamber of commerce, which runs the airport. "We just land where we are told," said the airline. What's more, the builder had taken a deliberate risk: nestled the Blue Bird only 80 yards from the airport runway. And, finally, Air France invoked a 1952 international aviation treaty that declares: "There is no right to damages if the injury results only from the passage of the aerial vehicle through air space in conformity to the applicable traffic rules...
Letting down in fogbound St. Louis, See overshot the runway on his first pass, went into a tight turn to begin a new approach. "Final ILS 24," he radioed the tower-meaning that he aimed to make an Instrument Landing System descent on runway 24. Inexplicably, he continued his turn. Just then, some witnesses heard a loud whooph!-possibly indicating an engine flameout. Others reported hearing an explosion...
...shipment to Cape Kennedy later in the week. The plane bounced, hit the building again, then plummeted into a parking lot, bursting into flames. Bassett was decapitated. See was hurled through the shattered fuselage and killed instantly. Stafford and Cernan, unaware of the crash, touched down safely on a runway nearby...
...radar-directed approach was perfect until he was only a few hundred yards short of the runway. Then the control-tower radar scanner saw in horror that the huge DC-8 suddenly had sunk twenty feet below the correct glide path. "Level off," commanded the tower operator. Seconds later, the plane dropped off the radar screen. Too low, the plane's wheels apparently snagged on the breakwater at the edge of the runway, sending the DC-8 cartwheeling down the field...