PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Malaysia Airlines plane starts flying in the wrong direction
Old 29th Dec 2015, 15:12
  #34 (permalink)  
Airbubba
 
Join Date: Jun 2001
Location: Rockytop, Tennessee, USA
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Air Bubba you're just about wrong on every point you have posted, but no harm no foul since I don't think you understood my posting to begin with.
And, let me guess, you happen to be too busy right now to give any examples of how I am just about wrong on every point...

the captain, who fancied his chances with a young flight attendant, went down the back not long after takeoff and stayed a little longer than anticipated - without briefing the FO to insert the subsequent WPTS.
I saw a demo of how not to impress a flight attendant with an overwater navigation system years ago. I was an FE on the B-727 deadheading on my own airline to an overseas assignment on a brand new shiny widebody with the latest in FMS glass cockpit navigation.

The captain was back dozing in his first class rest seat and I was wide awake and bored in the dark at 30 West. I hadn't had any champagne and wanted to see this new fangled computer stuff so I went up to the cockpit and said hello.

The two FO's were busy showing a young flight attendant all the bells and whistles and lights of the modern flight deck.

They wanted to spell her name on the nav displays with a manually entered off track waypoint but 'Katrina' had too many letters. One of the FO's figured that they could do it with two waypoints, one 'KATRI' placed next to another named 'NA'.

In a scene I've witnessed (and participated in) several times in the years since, both pilots went heads down furiously typing on the FMS boxes trying to get the waypoints to line up nicely on the screen. At some point one guy line selected one of the waypoints and the other executed it and the plane started a 90 degree turn in the general direction of KEF, or should I say, KATRI.

Instead of going to heading select to stay on the NAT track, the FO's continued the tandem typing and eventually the plane wallowed back to the proper course.
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