There are ILS available at both airports as well as numerous other approaches. I believe that most airlines opspecs require using an ILS if it is available. This aircraft is a highly modified cargo carrier that is used to transport aircraft assemblies.
3400ft is over 1000m. Looooads for a C17, surely 
The shortest demo landing roll for an A330, I am told, is 700m. I have seen a 747 – presumably empty – get off at Manston in an estimated 400m.
audio is here and for Peter, me and others( who are not getting everything they said in that strange language – transcript here.
Weather seemed to be somehow oscilating that night (some clouds, but not all the time). The first sentence of audio – when he is somehow not confident what kind of approach they are actually on) is settting a scene for my speculation not the first crew to land somewhere else after visually approach and definitely not the last one…
In Frejus, on the Mediterranean coast, there used to be an airfield quite similar to Cannes’ one. Same location next to the beach, same shape of the shore, same runway. Several pilots made the confusion, landing on the wrong one. Now Frejus is closed, trees grow next to the runway which is used as a car parking lot. But seen from quite far and/or high, it is still possible to head towards Frejus instead of Cannes if you’re not cautious. The Cannes AIP plate even warns pilots again such a confusion as far as I remember.
Making such a mistake doesn’t seem impossible to me when you fly VFR without a GPS as I most often do.
Over at the R&N part of the wrinkled plum, someone posted the approach plates for KAAO and KIAB. Strangely, the KAAO ones show the other airports in the vicinity, but the ones for KIAB do not. As so often in aviation, the words ‘hole’ and ‘cheese’ come to mind.
I suspect the difference in the chart look and feel has to do with one was to AF standards and the other was to AeroNav Standards. Undoubtedly Jeppesen charts were used, Jeppesen being a Boeing company and all. A trick question on the KAAO chart, why does the profile view show the runway with two segments with a small space in between?
Also mentioned in the pprune posts is the fact that the KAAO R19 lies directly on the localizer toward KIAB. They are only a few miles apart. One can imagine, at night, grabbing KAAO’s R19 visually and letting go of the glide slope, assuming you had the RWY in sight. We might think that we’d do a better job att prepping the landing, but who knows. They’d apparently already been handed off by approach by that time (they were established, I guess), and not off track, so ATS was none the wiser. Seems plausible.
A trick question on the KAAO chart, why does the profile view show the runway with two segments with a small space in between? (asks NCYankee)
Page 8-84, para 8-57aa: Secondary Airports. When there is another airport(s) in the vicinity of the final approach course that may be confused with the airport to which the approach is designed, request the airport be depicted in the plan and profile views of the procedure chart; e.g., “Chart (airport 4-letter ID) in plan and profile views.”
FAA: Order 8260.19E. Subject: Flight Procedures and Airspace, National Policy
ANTEK,
Correct answer. Most pilots don’t know this and it will usually be worth a win of a bet for a beer. 
The KAAO chart depicts multiple runways because if follows the AeroNav charting standards in the 8260.19E order, the KIAB doesn’t because it was drafted by Air Force standards.
