Tired pilot turns on wrong taxiway

This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.

After landing at Melbourne Orlando International Airport (KMLB) in Florida, I turned off of Runway 9L at Taxiway Mike and was instructed to taxi Mike to the ramp. Due to it being dark and taxiway markings in poor condition, I got confused and accidentally taxied onto Taxiway Kilo. This was despite using a taxiway diagram and being very familiar with the airfield.

I realized my mistake when I realized that Mike shouldn’t have taxiway lights and turned off of Kilo as soon as possible.

Luckily, due to the airport being empty at night, there were no aircraft on the taxiway at that point and I believe this reduced any immediate risk from the mistake, which I attempted to correct as soon as it was safe to do so.

ATC did not mention my error to me. This means that either ATC did not notice my mistake or they did not think it was significant enough to mention.

I was lucky that there wasn’t an aircraft on the taxiway, which could have resulted in a major situation.

I believe it was a combination of fatigue (hour long night flight at the end of a day) and the dark conditions made it difficult to notice the proper taxiway markings.

I believe having aircraft taxi on an unlit taxiway at night is risky as it could be easy to miss on a dark night especially next to a lit taxiway which would draw a pilot’s visual attention.

Additionally, due to it being my home airport I may have subconsciously paid less attention to the airport diagram than I would have at another airport. Going forward I will pay extra close attention to the airport diagram, especially at night when I may have to taxi to an unlit portion of the airfield. This, combined with verbally briefing the taxi route out loud, could prevent an incident like this from happening again.

It is easy to get distracted at night, especially if tired at the end of a flight, and make mistakes like this. So definitely, always use a diagram, double check the route and signs, airports should make sure markings are in good condition. More importantly than just using a diagram is actively reading it and understanding it no matter how familiar with the airport you are.

Primary Problem: Airport

ACN: 1793727