Pilot Reportedly Mis-Entered Starting Position In Nav System

The pilot of an AirAsia flight that was supposed to fly from Sydney, Australia to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia landed in Melbourne, Australia instead after the pilot apparently input the wrong starting coordinates into the airplane's navigation system.

In a report issued by the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau, On 10 March 2015 Airbus A330, registered 9M-XXM and operated by Malaysian-based airline Air Asia X, was conducting a regular passenger service from Sydney, New South Wales to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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 initialization 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.

(Source: ATSB Report. Image from file)

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