Air Aisa A330 lands at wrong airport!

[YukonPete 580]

Another airline added to my never fly list!

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/07/airasia-pilot-flies-melbourne-malaysia-navigation-error

[n4gix 4,947]

Oh my, how embarrassing... not to mention expensive!

[HighBypass 2,339]

The poor A330 did exactly as it was told LOL!

[BuboBubo 35]

Full report is available here:; https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2015/aair/ao-2015-029/

 

Quote posted under Creative Commons license:

 

On departure from runway 16R the aircraft was observed by air traffic control to enter the departure flight path of the parallel runway 16L. Following advice from air traffic control,

the flight crew identified a problem with the onboard navigation systems. Attempts to troubleshoot and rectify the problem resulted in further degradation of the navigation system,

as well as to the aircraft’s flight guidance and flight control systems. The crew elected to discontinue the flight but were unable to return to Sydney as the weather had deteriorated

in the Sydney area and the available systems limited the flight to approaches in visual conditions. The aircraft was instead radar vectored to Melbourne, Victoria and the flight completed

in visual conditions.

 

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 ATSB also found that the aircraft was not fitted with an upgraded flight management system that would have prevented the data entry error via either

automated initialisation or automatic correction of manual errors.

The flight crew attempted to troubleshoot and rectify the situation while under heavy workload. Combined with limited guidance from the available checklists, this resulted in further

errors by the flight crew in the diagnosis and actioning of flight deck switches. Finally, the ATSB identified that effective monitoring and assistance by air traffic control reduced the

risk to the occurrence aircraft and other aircraft in the area

[PaulGR 168]

I thought airbus is soooo much smarter than boeing...   

[DavidP 1,408]

The thread title is a bit misleading. The aircraft was directed to YMML. Of course this brings out all of the Airbus jokes but a common theme seems to be that certain pilots are not trained well enough on Airbus systems, or despite their training, are not smart enough to understand.

[Blaze 102]

They (or the PIC) made a data entry error, an honest mistake.  What will get them fired is not the mistake but ignoring the warning systems that tried to draw their attention to it.

[michal 44]

to be that certain pilots are not trained well enough on Airbus systems, or despite their training, are not smart enough to understand.

Really has nothing to do with Airbus systems or Boeing systems or some other 'systems'. This is a mistake that can happen when pilot decides to use a shortcut and land on runway he can all of a sudden see without double-checking it is the right runway. Since 99.9% of time there is no such conflicting airport nearby - it is easy o see why pilot may skip verification. Flying purely using visual cues is as old as aviation and it will always be important part of situational awareness in the cockpit - regardless of 'systems'. 

[KevinAu 441]

Another airline added to my never fly list!

 

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/07/airasia-pilot-flies-melbourne-malaysia-navigation-error

You should go work for yahoo news. They love to give their stories misleading and exaggerated titles.

[spesimen 135]

Really has nothing to do with Airbus systems or Boeing systems or some other 'systems'. This is a mistake that can happen when pilot decides to use a shortcut and land on runway he can all of a sudden see without double-checking it is the right runway. Since 99.9% of time there is no such conflicting airport nearby - it is easy o see why pilot may skip verification. Flying purely using visual cues is as old as aviation and it will always be important part of situational awareness in the cockpit - regardless of 'systems'. 

 

i 100% agree that's not really an airbus or boeing thing.  but just to clarify, they didn't land at the wrong runway. they entered the wrong gps coordinates during initialization and then somehow ignored all of the warnings and inconsistencies that were going on with that and decided to takeoff anyway. when they were unable to rectify this issue while flying, they were diverted to a different airport due to weather conditions deteriorating from where they had started. so they did technically end up at a different spot than they were intending, but it's not quite the same thing as landing at the wrong place. 

 

cheers

-andy crosby

[garrett_frank 150]

Any flight that has the same number of takeoffs and landings is, in my book, a success.

[Biggles2010 342]

The events were triggered by incorrect data entry, as happened with the title of this topic.

The airline concerned was Air Asia, not Air Aisa. 

[DavidP 1,408]

Really has nothing to do with Airbus systems or Boeing systems or some other 'systems'. This is a mistake that can happen when pilot decides to use a shortcut and land on runway he can all of a sudden see without double-checking it is the right runway. Since 99.9% of time there is no such conflicting airport nearby - it is easy o see why pilot may skip verification. Flying purely using visual cues is as old as aviation and it will always be important part of situational awareness in the cockpit - regardless of 'systems'.

 

You need to read the report a little closer.

[WR269 367]

The title is very wrong indeed and was started by an Australian media outlet and never corrected. Let's face it, makes people want to click on the link far more than if the title said "Pilots enter wrong coordinates and have to return to land".

How the pilot missed the cues is bewildering. The aircraft was supposed to turn right after takeoff but turned left, across the path of the parallel runway. This is when ATC and the crew took control and unfortunately for the crew they could not return to Sydney to land due to severe weather so they went to YMML. There was no mistake there, once at ML they performed maintenance and continued on.

[michal 44]

 

 

You need to read the report a little closer.

I was talking in general, not in reference to this particular incident.