Private Jet Almost Lands At Air Force Base In Error In Tampa

Pilots from the Florida area will probably know exactly where this story is going just from the headline.

On November 16, 2025, Tampa International Airport (TPA) was conducting landings and departures in a northerly flow, with the bulk of arriving traffic landing on runway 1L (left). A Cessna Citation VI registered N500FR was just wrapping up a flight from Oklahoma City (PWA), and turned final, calling tower to report they were on the final approach at 1,600 feet at roughly 12-13 nautical miles from the airport.

Assuming the pilots were shooting an instrument approach such as the ILS or RNAV, they would have been well below the charted altitude of 2,600 feet at that distance. It’s not clear what type of approach they were cleared for, and there is a good chance they may have been on a visual and given a lower altitude.  

When the Citation pilots checked in with the tower controller, they were initially told to continue the approach as there was an aircraft on the runway. They were also third in line on the approach behind a Special Air Mission C-37A (Gulfstream V) and a Breeze Airways Airbus A220-300.

After the departing traffic at Tampa cleared the runway, all three aircraft on final were cleared to land. When N500FR received their clearance, they were approaching 500 feet, a stark difference from the Breeze A220 ahead which was still at 1,800 feet.

Just eight miles south of Tampa International is MacDill Air Force Base, with a north-easterly oriented runway (runway 5). Are you seeing where this is going? N500FR broke off the runway 1L approach path into Tampa, making a right turn to line up to land at MacDill. At around 300 feet on final, the pilots realized they were landing at the wrong airport, and notified tower that they were going around.

“We’re going around. I think we’re at the wrong airport, 500FR.”

The tower controller gave them a vector following the go around, and were passed back to the approach controller for re-sequencing. Once back in line, they safely landed at the correct airport.

Given the eight-mile separation, I’m not completely surprised that this happened, but it’s still a bit strange given both airports have different runway orientations. Tampa’s runway 1L faces north while MacDill’s runway 5 is more north easterly. I suspect the pilots may have visually identified MacDill as Tampa, well before turning final.

Could this have been avoided? Sure! Let’s assume they were flying the approach completely visually, it’s always a good idea to load an instrument approach as a backup, even on the clearest of days.

Runway 1L has an Instrument Landing System (ILS), meaning the aircraft is able to display and descend laterally and vertically to the runway. Even if they want to hand-fly a visual approach, tuning the ILS will still provide visual cues on the primary flight display as a fall back.

On a positive note, at least the pilots picked up on their error quickly. ATC was cool and calm about it, opting to go for the re-sequence rather than clogging in the airwaves scolding them. I’m sure they’ve seen it happen enough times to expect it as well. Here’s the video of the interaction below.

It’s not the first time something like this has happened. In 1984, an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 landed at MacDill, after they confused the base for Tampa International.

Airport mix ups in the area are a bit common, with most of the confusion occurring between MacDill AFB and Peter O. Knight Airport (TPF). Separated less than five miles apart, it’s easy to see how pilots could confuse the two as MacDill has a runway 5 while Peter O. Knight has a runway 4, both almost in line with each other.

On July 20, 2012, an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III accidentally landed there while originally lining up to land at MacDill, resulting in the viral video below.

It’s a good thing the C-17 has such amazing short field performance, or else things could have turned out to be catastrophic.

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