Straight in approach isn’t always a good idea.

[RJBrown]

Last night a 172 flying in from Dallas intended to land at Stellar Airpark. 
It appears to me that she mistook the street east of the Airpark for the runway.

Either failed to light the pilot controlled lights or simply didn’t notice them because the street lights were brighter.

Flying the full pattern at an unfamiliar airport, especially after dark, is always a good idea.

Not fatal this time.

[Davidv]

Wow, I'm glad it wasn't fatal, too many things to hit on a street at night.  For those with the technology also a good to pull up the RNAV/Visual/ILS approach or whatever is available to make sure you are landing in the right place at night.

[Greg Ellis]

That plane belongs to American Flyers out of Addison, Texas.  They had a school at Meacham in Fort Worth, Texas.  I flew that plane back in around 2003 during my instrument training.

[N201MKTurbo]

I used to be based at Steller Air Park. I haven’t landed there at night for decades, but the south end of the runway didn’t used to have lights. It is very weird to land on 35 at night. I did it a couple of times. You have to line up on the runway lights and then touch down 2000 ft shy of the lights. Unless there is a howling wind, you want to land on 17 at night.

[Yetti]

There is an industrial park to the West of Stinson that looks like an airport.  The Tower guy said look for the tower.  That's when a light went off in my head that said "oh probably over there by that rotating beacon"  Flying at night is a whole different set of rules.   You have to know all those runway signs and everything.

[jlunseth]

One of the great things about moving map technology is the ability to check that you are landing on the right runway at the right airport. Even my old MX20 would do that, now with a GTN750 I even get an approach slope if I want it. No excuses now.

[toto]

27 minutes ago, jlunseth said:

One of the great things about moving map technology is the ability to check that you are landing on the right runway at the right airport. Even my old MX20 would do that, now with a GTN750 I even get an approach slope if I want it. No excuses now.

Yep, I've gotten to the point where I almost always use a visual approach on the GTN no matter how well I know the airport and no matter how clear the weather.