Apple Maps Directed Cars Right Across an Airplane Runway

Ah, Apple Maps, one of the most abhorred apps ever. A year after Apple infamously switched the default maps app on the iPhone from Google to its own way worse version, the map is still riddled with errors. Any flaw is frustrating as heck when you're trying to get somewhere, but in a PR nightmare for Apple, some errors have even been called out as life-threatening.

In the latest snafu, the app's turn-by-turn directions routed more than one driver headed for the airport in Fairbanks, Alaska right across a runway that's regularly used by 737s and other commercial planes, the Alaska Dispatch reported.

To be clear, the route doesn't actually say "turn right and continue on across dangerous airport runway." But it drops drivers off on Taxiway B, very close to the terminal but on the other side of the runway, at which point some people decide to make the cross. (Google Maps directs people to the terminal parking lot.) Luckily, the cars didn't actually run into an airplane. There have been no injuries, and anyone saying that Apple Maps is a deathtrap or the equivalent is assuredly being hyperbolic.

Still, it's a problem that keeps happening. After the first incident early this month, airport officials got in touch with Apple and the company promised to either fix the flaw or disable the app for the Fairbanks area. That didn't happen, and last week two more confused drivers cruised over the runway looking for the terminal. So now the airport's taken things into its own hands, putting up barricades and warning the pilots to be on the look out for rogue cars.

While launching a map that doesn't know where things are located is just bad form, in Apple's defense, it can't control the extent that people are willing to put blind faith in their iPhone. “These folks drove past several signs. They even drove past a gate. None of that cued them that they did something inappropriate,” airport official Melissa Osborn told the Dispatch.

We've come to rely on internet-enabled GPS systems to the point where common sense is chucked out the window. And with smartphones, those GPS services aren't even made by navigation companies—people actually appear to be blindly steering their cars wherever Apple's rushed mapping system tells them to go.

The integration is just getting started. As smart cars hit the market, it could be common for every car to have a map app built right into it, updating the route in real-time as you drive. No one will ever have to trace out directions again. But do these app really deserve our trust? As I wrote about recently, I drove from Cape Cod to New York totally at the will of the Waze app, recalculating the route in real-time to avoid traffic. Someone could have hacked into the app and sent me halfway to Canada before I realized what was going on.

The Fairfax runway is just the latest in a list of Apple Maps fails. In December, Australia declared the app a public safety issue after it was directing people into the middle of the wilderness, where they were stranded and needed to be rescued. When the app got the location of the Dulles airport outside of Washington DC wrong, CNN reported the glitch "could get a driver arrested and possibly run over by a 747."

Which is all to say, fire up the GPS, sure, but you should probably look out the window and read a traffic sign every once and awhile too. Or download Google's app.