Paging Fly320s to the courtesy phone please

[BobR]

https://www.foxnews.com/travel/british-airways-flight-takes-off-in-wrong-direction-lands-525-miles-away-from-destination

How does something like this happen? I am at a loss here. Has flying become so automated that the crew is handed a flight plan and sent on their way without knowing where they are going. To me this screams incompetence but maybe I am missing something. Surely someone, somewhere must have known where the plane was supposed to go and could have rerouted them, maybe? I just can't come up with a scenario where something like this could happen. Maybe because I am used to the pilots filing flight plans, getting the weather briefing for destination and enroute. If they had done that you would think a light bulb would have gone off and said, hey, maybe we should step back a look at this a bit before we blast off.

bob

[HankB]

What's missing is information about the fright crew - without names and pictures, you can't help but wonder if this is the result of affirmative action hiring somewhere in the chain.

[TommyGunn]

Any relationship to "Wrong Way Corrigan? ? ? ? ? ?"

[WLJ]

Don't think you can blame the flight crew for this one, they merely flew to where the flight plan told them to. The blame falls squarely on whoever filed the wrong flight plan.

[BobR]

Don't think you can blame the flight crew for this one, they merely flew to where the flight plan told them to. The blame falls squarely on whoever filed the wrong flight plan.

That is what baffles me, you would think they would know where they are supposed to go. You don't just kick the tires, light the fires and go to where ever the autopilot is programmed to go, or at least I hope not. There has to be some type of flight planning done by the flight crew. I imagine the charts are all electronic also so at least they had the right approach plates with them. All assumptions of course on my part.

bob

[MechAg94]

Passengers on the hourlong flight did not realize they landed in a different country until the pilot made an announcement welcoming them to Edinburgh, BBC reported.

Passenger Sophie Cooke told the BBC that those on the flight thought the pilot was joking, until flight crew confirmed that they were in Scotland.

"The pilot said he had no idea how it had happened. He said it had never happened before and that the crew was trying to work out what we could do," Cooke said.

Sounds to me like the Flight Crew thought the flight was supposed to go to Scotland and didn't realize anything was wrong until they landed.  The paperwork must have gotten crossed up before it got to them.  The wrong destination got paired up with that flight.  I also assume the logistics set up based on the wrong destination unless they had some fuel left over. 

Could there have been another flight headed to Germany that was supposed to go to Scotland?   

[Firethorn]

Isn't it the flight crew that normally files the flight plan?

On the other hand, it sounds like the flight crew was given the wrong destination in the first place...

The pilots aren't necessarily reading the board next to the boarding ramp telling the passengers where the plane is going...

It's just that, unlike most flights I've been on, they didn't do the usual "This is our flight to X location this day, it'll be Y time to get there, and we anticipate landing at Z time" which would have allowed the passengers to complain to the attendants and the attendants to verify with the flight crew that all is good...

I mean, if you have 50 passengers expecting to head to Germany when you're planning to go to Scotland, there's a slight issue that should be resolved before you take off, when resolution is cheaper.

[MechAg94]

Isn't it the flight crew that normally files the flight plan?

On the other hand, it sounds like the flight crew was given the wrong destination in the first place...

The pilots aren't necessarily reading the board next to the boarding ramp telling the passengers where the plane is going...

It's just that, unlike most flights I've been on, they didn't do the usual "This is our flight to X location this day, it'll be Y time to get there, and we anticipate landing at Z time" which would have allowed the passengers to complain to the attendants and the attendants to verify with the flight crew that all is good...

I mean, if you have 50 passengers expecting to head to Germany when you're planning to go to Scotland, there's a slight issue that should be resolved before you take off, when resolution is cheaper.

Forgot about that part.  Maybe it was said right after the safety briefing and everyone had zoned out.

[Firethorn]

Forgot about that part.  Maybe it was said right after the safety briefing and everyone had zoned out.

I'd figure that you'd usually have somebody like me who actually pays attention to such announcements on any given flight...

Though yeah, I might convince myself that I heard wrong.  Of course, the flight attendants could also have "assumed' and reassured any concerned passengers that yep, they were going to Germany.  Even as the sun ended up in the wrong position for such a flight...

[Fly320s]

My guess is that the crew and plane were scheduled to go to Scotland, but were reassigned to go to Germany, but were not told they were reassigned.

Or

The crew thought they were operating flight 111 to Scotland, but the passengers were told that plane was flight 222 to Germany.

Or something similar.  

There is almost no way the crew could have accidently landed in Scotland when they were aiming for Germany.  

[Fly320s]

I'll try to address the individual points:

Has flying become so automated that the crew is handed a flight plan and sent on their way without knowing where they are going.

No.  We always know where we are going before we get to work.  I know my schedule the month prior.  Even the reserve pilots (on-call pilots) know where they are going before they get to the airport.  Besides, we have to double check the work of the dispatcher to make sure the flight plan is correct.

Don't think you can blame the flight crew for this one, they merely flew to where the flight plan told them to. The blame falls squarely on whoever filed the wrong flight plan.

There has to be some type of flight planning done by the flight crew.

In the airline world, almost none of the flight planning is done by the crew.  The dispatcher handles that and much of that work is done by the software.  We pilots just give the flight plan a "gross error check."  Again, I know my scheduled destination before I get on the plane.  If I'm scheduled to fly to 2,300 miles to SFO, but the flight plan shows our route is 1,000 miles, that would be a gross error.

I haven't personally filed a flight plan in at least 19 years. 

I bet there was a gate change or aircraft change at the departure airport that got mixed up.  I looked up who actually flew that flight.  It was WDL Aviation, a German Charter airline, running the route for British Airways.  From what I can tell, WDL is not a normal regional airline partner, but an actual charter company.  Maybe the charter company filed the flight plan to the wrong city.

[Hawkmoon]

There was a case in South America several years ago in which a flight went to the wrong place. It was featured in an episode of Mayday (the television series that's now [mostly] available on Youtube. As you might imagine if it was featured on Mayday, that flight didn't end as well as this one.