Navigation boo boo.

[Mooneymite]

http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/07/aviation/airasia-melbourne-malaysia-error/index.html

 

A flight to Malaysia from Sydney accidentally flew to Melbourne instead because its pilot entered the wrong coordinates, an Australian aviation investigation report has found.

[201er]

Wow. Glad they had enough gas. This is why I zoom out the moving map and look at the bigger picture before flying. Sometimes entered waypoints or airport codes wrong.

[AaronDC8402]

They must have been using a GNS480. 

 

[Piloto]

These were very poorly trained pilot with a real bad geography education in middle school. Any of us here in the forum would have noticed the error just because of the bearing and distance to destination. I would ground the airline and check all personnel qualifications.

José

[Mooneymite]

34 minutes ago, Piloto said:

 I would ground the airline and check all personnel qualifications.

Piloto, sometimes it seems that humans' ability to find new ways to make mistakes is unlimited.

Some day all pilots will be replaced by properly programed machines and things like this won't happen.

[PMcClure]

Reading the article closely, they didn't enter the destination incorrectly, but the starting point. They noticed after becoming airborne and the plane wanted to go the wrong direction. Why do they have to enter the starting point, even my Mooney knows where it is all by itself. 

[Mooneymite]

Just now, PMcClure said:

Reading the article closely, they didn't enter the destination incorrectly, but the starting point. They noticed after becoming airborne and the plane wanted to go the wrong direction. Why do they have to enter the starting point, even my Mooney knows where it is all by itself. 

Funny you should mention that!

Couple of years ago, we picked up a jet that had recently had its FMS replaced.  We programmed it as usual, but what we didn't know, at first, was that the box thought it was in Wichita, KS (where it had been repaired), while we were in St. Louis.  When we entered the assigned SID, the distance, time, bearing just didn't make sense.  Boxes can be pretty oblivious.....and so can (some) pilots.  Once properly initialized with present position, all was well.

[1964-M20E]

1 hour ago, Mooneymite said:

Piloto, sometimes it seems that humans' ability to find new ways to make mistakes is unlimited.

Some day all pilots will be replaced by properly programed machines and things like this won't happen.

Yes but man is still doing the programming.

[peevee]

a similar little mistake of forgetting to come out of heading mode got a korean air flight shot down...

[thinwing]

Navigation boo boo...more like honey boo boo was the pilot

[Piloto]

Early long range jets have the Delco Carouse INS and later (B757, 7B67) had the Honeywell FMS 200. Both of these systems had to be initialized at the gate by entering the coordinates posted in front of the plane. After GPS came in the pilot would initialize by accepting the GPS coordinates on the FMS 200. When properly initialized these systems would have no more than 1nm/hr drift over the North Atlantic. Once in reach of DME/TACAN stations on the coast the FMS updates the position solution with multilateration position determination. After GPS came in the FMS use it as another source of position.

Even if the FMS was not available a pilot can fly the route by tuning the navaids manually.

José

 

[peevee]

4 minutes ago, Piloto said:

 

Even if the FMS was not available a pilot can fly the route by tuning the navaids manually.

José

 

not so easy when theyre lat/long defined rnav waypoints

[Mooneymite]

2 minutes ago, peevee said:

not so easy when theyre lat/long defined rnav waypoints

Easily found by crossing a sun line with a Consolan bearing. 

[peevee]

Just now, Mooneymite said:

Easily found by crossing a sun line with a Consolan bearing. 

I just revert to celestial nav on all my XC flights

[Mooneymite]

14 minutes ago, peevee said:

I just revert to celestial nav on all my XC flights

Celestial nav?  That's what all the old crochety senior captains said they were doing when I caught 'em sleeping on those long west-bound flights.  Apparently they were seeing stars.  

 

[peevee]

1 minute ago, Mooneymite said:

Celestial nav?  That's what all the old crochety senior captains said they were doing when I caught 'em sleeping on those long west-bound flights.  Apparently they were seeing stars.  

 

a  neat bit of history-

https://timeandnavigation.si.edu/multimedia-asset/nortronics-nas-14v2-astroinertial-navigation-system

[flyboy0681]

20 hours ago, Piloto said:

These were very poorly trained pilot with a real bad geography education in middle school. Any of us here in the forum would have noticed the error just because of the bearing and distance to destination. I would ground the airline and check all personnel qualifications.

José

Here is my mea culpa. A similar situation happened to me, but just as you noted, I caught my mistake before ATC called me on it. On one of my first IFR flights I was given an amendment to my flight plan and told to fly direct to BAIRN (South Florida) then ORL and beyond. I entered BAIRD (located in Mississippi) and was left scratching my head because the time to destination had instantly doubled and it didn't look right on the map. I called up ATC to confirm the identifier and instantly realized my mistake.

One thing about the Air Asia incident that I don't understand is that in this day and age crews still have to program coordinates? I would have thought that the airport identifiers would be used with fixes along the way. This is how Korean Airlines 007 got into trouble. Or so they say.

[Piloto]

Some of the older jets still use the Delco Carousel INS that only accepts coordinates for waypoints (no name). But they would have VOR/DME/ILS/ADF for navigation. Some pilots would bring a portable GPS on these planes.

José

[flyboy0681]

Just now, Piloto said:

Some of the older jets still use the Delco Carousel INS that only accepts coordinates for waypoints (no name). But they would have VOR/DME/ILS/ADF for navigation. Some pilots would bring a portable GPS on these planes.

José

I remember the introduction of the Carousel IV vividly. It was truly revolutionary at the time.

[peevee]

41 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

 

One thing about the Air Asia incident that I don't understand is that in this day and age crews still have to program coordinates? I would have thought that the airport identifiers would be used with fixes along the way. This is how Korean Airlines 007 got into trouble. Or so they say.

I'm assuming at most airports they get a pdc and just have to amend if needed

[flyboy0681]

I took the time to read the official report. Some noteworthy items include that the FO "cross checked" the coordinates entered by the captain, which he clearly did not otherwise they would not have gotten themselves into that situation. The pilots reported clear weather when they were caught off-guard by the ground proximity warning, which went off unexpectedly because the system thought they were somewhere else, yet they could not return to Sydney due to weather.

The two pilots seemed totally confused and like fish out of water once their automation disappeared due to their shutdown of the NAV systems in order to reset them. I guess this wasn't handled in their training. They apparently couldn't even fly basic IFR and had to hand fly it to Melbourne because the autopilot was taken offline when the navigation systems came off.

Then came the approach into Melbourne, where they couldn't keep the speed pinned (no auto-throttles either) and executed a go-around. The gear was raise prior to pushing the throttles forward, which resulted in other warnings that took them by surprise, causing he captain to reduce thrust (at 750 feet) for all of the wrong reasons.

Other takeaways were that the system did warn the Captain of a disagreement between the coordinates entered and the GPS position, but he was confused by the messages given and thought it was for something else.

I also found it interesting that the autopilot was engaged at 410 feet. At 410 feet I'm busier than heck and starting my on-course turn and cleaning her up. Who has time to putz around with the autopilot?

Jose was correct when he said these guys were poorly trained. I'll add to that by saying they shouldn't have been allowed to fly considering the plane took an immediate wrong turn after takeoff when the A/P was engaged, across the path of a parallel runway, where a quick thinking controller had a departing aircraft hold its position. Seems to me, and we have seen this all before (most notably in San Francisco) that pilots simply can't fly the plane without the automation.

Edited September 8, 2016 by flyboy0681

[bradp]

Not entirely in some ways but very much in other ways applicable to our flying.  I love watching this guy.  There are five lectures in YouTube.