Pilot Lands In The Wrong Country

[Stingray Don]

http://mashable.com/2016/09/07/pilot-flys-melbourne-instead-of-malaysia/#4KJQpGqkJ5q6

Okay, the article is a little misleading. They actually had to divert due to an entry error by the captain. Which begs the question, why in a modern aircraft does the pilot have to manually enter the plane's position?

The ATSB found that when setting up the aircraft’s flight management and guidance system, the captain inadvertently entered the wrong longitudinal position of the aircraft. This adversely affected the onboard navigation systems however, despite a number of opportunities to identify and correct the error, it was not noticed until after the aircraft became airborne and started tracking in the wrong direction.

 

[timwinters]

He has a future with SWA!

 

[murphey]

Few commercial airliners use GPS. Most over water routes are still INS, as are most US military.

 

[luvflyin]

Open The Pod Bay Doors HAL

 

[Acrodustertoo]

I see captain Sum Ting Wong still has a job

 

[Stingray Don]

Few commercial airliners use GPS. Most over water routes are still INS, as are most US military.

Oh, I just assumed they all had gps. That explains it.

 

[unsafervguy]

Few commercial airliners use GPS. Most over water routes are still INS, as are most US military.

only those flying old crap. most US carriers have multi-sensor systems now.

bob

 

[Pilawt]

 

[ARFlyer]

http://mashable.com/2016/09/07/pilot-flys-melbourne-instead-of-malaysia/#4KJQpGqkJ5q6

Okay, the article is a little misleading. They actually had to divert due to an entry error by the captain. Which begs the question, why in a modern aircraft does the pilot have to manually enter the plane's position?

The ATSB found that when setting up the aircraft’s flight management and guidance system, the captain inadvertently entered the wrong longitudinal position of the aircraft. This adversely affected the onboard navigation systems however, despite a number of opportunities to identify and correct the error, it was not noticed until after the aircraft became airborne and started tracking in the wrong direction.

The FMS has to be loaded with it's current location. Often it knows its location already and you just press accept. If its had an internal battery failure then you get to manually enter the coordinates, if the GPS can't see the sky.

I can't believe they flew almost 4,000 miles in the opposite direction. "Uh Captain isn't the city east of here?" "Yep that's were we're going" as the sunset blinds them......

 

[Everskyward]

I can't believe they flew almost 4,000 miles in the opposite direction. "Uh Captain isn't the city east of here?" "Yep that's were we're going" as the sunset blinds them......

According to the corrected article, the pilots did not believe they were landing in Malaysia when they ended up in Australia. They turned back when they realized something was wrong.

Correction: Sept. 7, 2016, 8:58 a.m. EDT The Air Asia pilots made several errors in entering data into the aircraft’s navigation system, which caused them to follow an incorrect flight path out of Sydney, according to Australian transportation officials. An earlier version of this story mischaracterized what errors the pilots made. While troubleshooting the incorrect flight path, the pilots were unable to fix the issue, and may have compounded it. The aircraft’s systems would not allow the plane to be flown in instrument conditions and the weather also had deteriorated in Sydney by the time the pilots decided to turn back. They were directed via radar to a visual approach in Melbourne where they could land safely. The pilots did not believe the airport was located in Malaysia.

 

[vontresc]

Is that like entering 3MO instead of 3M0 into the GPS?

 

[Everskyward]

They could have made it to Malaysia if they had their sectional charts at the ready.

 

[ARFlyer]

According to the corrected article, the pilots did not believe they were landing in Malaysia when they ended up in Australia. They turned back when they realized something was wrong.

Well that doesn't make it as bad. Thanks for the update!

Is that like entering 3MO instead of 3M0 into the GPS?

During sim training for the 145 my sim partner entered the reverse ID of the VOR we were to use leaving SLC. Well my dumba$$ didn't catch it until we slammed into the Rockies at 6000'.

He pulled a blue falcon on me... I got him back the next day though.

 

[mscard88]

The FMS has to be loaded with it's current location. Often it knows its location already and you just press accept. ......

This. Should have been obvious "sumting wong" IF both pilots confirmed the route. Basic stuff

 

[Acrodustertoo]

A little "google fu" would have given the airline second thoughts on hiring this crew.

 

[Busflyer]

Copied from Aviation Herald

An Air Asia X Airbus A330-300, registration 9M-XXM performing flight D7-223 from Sydney,NS (Australia) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), was climbing out of Sydney when the crew decided to abort the flight due to a problem with the navigation display. Considering the weather conditions the crew decided not to return to Sydney but divert to Melbourne,VI (Australia), climbed the aircraft to FL310 and landed in Melbourne about 85 minutes after departure.

Following repairs the aircraft departed Melbourne after about 4 hours on the ground and reached Kuala Lumpur with a delay of 5 hours.

Malaysia's Civil Aviation Authority reported the aircraft suffered a problem with the navigation display.

Air Services Australia reported the aircraft suffered a technical problems and diverted to Melbourne because weather conditions were better.

The airline confirmed the aircraft diverted as a precaution due to a technical problem.

On Sep 7th 2016 the ATSB released their final reportconcluding the probable causes of the occurrence rated an incident were:

Contributing factors

- When manually entering the coordinates of the aircraft’s position using a data entry technique that was not recommended by the aircraft manufacturer, the longitude was incorrectly entered as 01519.8 east (15° 19.8’ east) instead of 15109.8 east (151° 9.8’ east). This resulted in a positional error in excess of 11,000 km, which adversely affected the aircraft’s navigation systems and some alerting systems.

- The aircraft was not fitted with an upgraded flight management system that would have negated the positional data entry error via either automated initialisation of the air data and inertial reference system, or the automatic correction of manual errors.

- The aircraft’s navigation system probably detected the data entry error and displayed an associated message. However, due to the combination of that message being similar to one displayed during routine alignment of the inertial reference system, and the captain’s understanding that the same alignment-related message may be displayed twice, the error was not identified.

 

[BigBadLou]

That reminds me of the flight in South America where the crew made a huge mistake of flying into the sunset instead of away from it (IIRC) and ended up in BFE middle of nowhere over a jungle.
The outcome of that one was tragic. But same basic principle applies: if you don't know where TF you're going, how can you fly an airplane full of people?
It's like if you got into a cab in Miami and asked to go to New York and the cabbie drove south for hours. (I am using this just for illustration)
Over-reliance on automation is a bad thing. We are human, we make mistakes. Automation will do whatever we ask it to do, including taking us to an incorrectly entered destination. No surprises here.

 

[Dr. O]

Don't laugh - my automobile GPS got an electron caught sideways in the processor two weeks ago. I hit the go-home button and it confidently threw up the magenta line and I followed it through triple overpass underpass spaghetti going around a major city. About ten miles later I'm mumbling that something is wrong. My wife, as usual, is annoyed with my grumping and swearing at city traffic and all but tells me to shut up, or else. Finally we burst out of the inner city sewage channel (18 foot high concrete walls on both sides and tall buildings) and I can see the sky. Of course we were going East when we should be going West. Now I have to go 10 miles back the other way not a real issue but I was annoyed - gee, maybe if I had a dog I could have been a presidential candidate. Ted? Anyone.
I leave the expressway and find secondary roads and just follow my nose and viola (a french musical instrument I guess) we arrived home. She actually said she enjoyed the drive much better than the expressway. Or maybe it was because I had quit swearing and was actually whistling as we cruised past the corn fields and cows.