WASHINGTON — Southwest Airlines pilots who recently landed at the wrong airport in Missouri have told investigators they were confused by the small airport’s runway lights at Graham Clark Downtown Airport in Hollister, Mo., believing it to be a larger airport in Branson, 7 miles away, the National Transportation Safety Board said Friday.

During the landing approach, the pilots contacted the Branson control tower and were told they were 15 miles from their target. But the pilots responded that they had the airfield in sight.

Controllers then cleared the plane for a visual approach to land on Branson runway 14. That means the pilots were relying on what they could see rather than automation to orient the plane. Instead, the midsized airliner with 124 passengers on board landed on the Downtown Airport runway, which is half as long as the Branson runway. Passengers later described the plane coming to an extremely hard stop just short of a ravine at the end of the runway, and the smell of burnt rubber.