AirAsia Pilot Screws Up Royally As He Lands Plane In Melbourne Instead Of Malaysia

The next time a plane bound to Malaysia goes missing, it might not be a crash; just an absentminded pilot.

An AirAsia pilot put the wrong coordinates during takeoff. The plane was carrying 212 passengers and was taking off from Sydney to Malaysia when the pilot screwed up and they ended up in Melbourne.

The incident happened in 2015, but the Australian Transport Safety Bureau published the report yesterday.

 

The pilot put in the coordinates as 01519.8 east (15 degrees 19.8 minutes east) instead of 15109.8 east (151 degrees 9.8 minutes east) which translated into an error of 11,000 kilometers.

The ground crew even tried to alert the flight crew but the crew ignored them and took off anyway. The flight crew later realised that they had screwed up and even tried to rectify their mistake but it only worsened the problem.

 

The crew was asked to return to Sydney airport but bad weather forced the plane to be routed to Melbourne instead.

After spending the next 3 hours on the Melbourne runway, the flight finally took off for Malaysia.

It has happened to the best of us. How many times have we entered the wrong address in the GPS and landed in the wrong place?

But the difference here is we don’t have the responsibility of 212 people on our shoulders.

That’s where it becomes a real responsibility.

News Source – CNN