Around 20 years ago I was on a cross country flight with a pilot friend. We were in a rented 172 RG from Illinois on our way to North Carolina or Virginia ( I don’t remember which). We had been this way a couple of times before. I had friends there and he had family there so we would split the cost to fly there and take turns flying.

We were both VFR only pilots at the time but we made sure that when we did those long cross country flights that we took off a couple of extra days from work in case we got stranded due to weather. Weather was not a problem this day. The visibility was a little hazy and we were using pilotage to find our way there, trying to keep track of where we were on the sectional chart.

About 20 miles before reaching the Smoky Mountains I happened to notice that it was slightly wet around the mixture control shaft where it went into the firewall. It was barely wet so I assumed it was just lubricated so that it would be easier to move. We were admiring the view as we approached the mountains flying about 2000′ above them. I was looking at the chart trying to figure out exactly where we were going to cross so we could figure out where we’d go in an emergency if the engine failed over the mountains. According to the chart we should have been just 2 or 3 miles from an airport right below us. There was another about 10 miles from that one.

Just as we finished looking at the chart, we were about to reach the mountains so I did a quick scan of the instruments to be sure everything looked good. I glanced at the mixture control and noticed liquid running down the firewall where the mixture control went into it. It no longer seemed to be lubrication. I reached over and rubbed my finger in it and smelled it. It was fuel! We had fuel leaking into the airplane!

I immediately powered to idle and went into a steep spiraling turn to get the ground as soon as possible. I was not going to burn today! I yelled to my friend to look for the airport and said there should be one below us somewhere. On the way down we spotted an airport about 5 miles away and flew well into the yellow arc (it was a smooth air day) to get to it as fast as possible. By the time we were over the top we spiraled onto base, watching for traffic but not talking on the radio. We just wanted to get it on the gournd before it caught on fire. I continued to roll into a tight turn to final, got it on the ground and started rolling down the runway to the first exit.

As I looked over toward the taxiway my stomach flipped around and I got a huge sinking feeling in my gut. I was looking at a Control Tower! We were a little off course and in the rush to get down we spotted the wrong airport. We thought it was the uncontrolled airport we were landing at but instead, we spiraled down at 1500′ per minute right over and into a Class D airport and landed without talking to anyone! As we taxied to the ramp, someone was walking out to meet us.

When we got out, the guy said that the tower wants us to call him. We explained what happened and apologized. He said to just let the tower know, he’ll understand. In the meantime, the guy (who was a mechanic), looked under the cowling after taking it off and said the whole firewall was soaked in fuel. The mixture control cable had been rubbing on the electric fuel pump and over time, it rubbed a hole into it and started spraying fuel all over. He said if the fuel had sprayed forward instead of backwards, then we would have caught on fire. He said we were really lucky!

We went inside, and explained to the tower controller what had happened. We told him how we thought we were at the other airport and we were scared to death that the plane was going to start on fire and our only thought was to get it on the ground. We would have called him if we knew. He said that we did a good job looking out for traffic because we came right down between someone on downwind and someone on short final. Someone was looking out for us because we never saw them!

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