Aerial view of the Glenview Naval Air Station control tower

Sometimes I feel the need to determine if a story is urban legend or fact, or at least find out if the situation is plausible.

While photographing an aerial view of the former Glenview Naval Air Station control tower recently, I remembered a story a high school classmate told me 37 years ago about a crew of a military transport plane that apparently mistook Palwaukee airport, now known as Chicago Executive Airport, for the navy base, which was located approximately six miles southeast.

My classmate, who was a member of the Navy Junior ROTC, insisted that the plane was so large that, although it could have landed at Palwaukee, a takeoff would have been challenging at best. As the story went, the Palwaukee control tower operator reached the approaching navy plane by radio and redirected the flight.

Wondering if the aircraft in question may have been a massive C-5A, I called Robert Coffin, curator of the Glenview Naval Air Museum, to check whether he had ever heard of such an incident. He stated that C-5A's rarely visited Glenview, and that C-130s - over 97 feet long with a 132-foot wingspan - were more common.

Coffin said that while he could not recall a specific incident around 1983, he confirmed that pilots destined for Glenview sometimes confused Palwaukee Airport for the Naval Air Station but managed to avoid landing there.

The Glenview Naval Air Station closed on Sept. 30, 1995, according to the Village of Glenview website. Now part of The Glen, the former Glenview Air Station control tower is situated between Dick's and Von Maur.