A Big Ole Ooops
Ok, so this Northwest flight crew becomes confused, and plunks itself down at Ellsworth Air Force Base instead of the real live airport it was sposed to be landing at. Now that's bad enough, but what if you were one of the poor painters who were minding their own business painting a runway when you look up, and EEEEK, here comes an airliner. This likely prompted a Monty Python-esque response of "RUN AWAY."
Then, if you were one of the unlucky 117 passengers who were trying to get to Rapid City rather than Slow Ellsworth, you got yourselves a free round trip ticket on Northwest. And you only had to sit there on the airplane for 4 hours while Homeland Insecurity came to make sure you weren't some kind of a terrorist who just happened to have a bomb, or maybe illegal chewing gum in your luggage, and take advantage of this totally unexpected situation to try to do something naughty to an Air Force base full of uh....MILITARY people with uh... grenades and rocket launchers and other naughty and awful things they could use.
More at this handly link .