Originally Posted by
angryrat
Well, it doesn't seem so in this case now, does it?
Great rejoinder from a 1986 flying movie.
A couple posters mentioned that the turn left to 180 instruction is not on the live atc audio. Liveatc is often unreliable, audio dropouts due to multiple frequencies monitored. The FAA spokesman quoted in the LA times did say the controller gave that left turn.
From the LA Times article:
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating an incident in which a passenger jet was given wrong directions by traffic controllers and guided toward the San Gabriel Mountains, where it flew just hundreds of feet higher than the peak of Mt. Wilson before turning around, according to publicly available flight data.
Bound for Taiwan, the EVA Air Boeing 777 took off to the east early Friday from Los Angeles International Airport’s south runway complex, according to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor. After takeoff, the air crew switched from the LAX control tower to the approach control operations in San Diego, which Gregor said was common practice.
“The air traffic controller at the approach control who was handling EVA instructed the pilot to make a left turn to a 180-degree heading,” he said. “She meant to tell the pilot to make a right turn to a 180-degree heading.”
Following the controller’s instructions, the pilot turned left.
The move sent the plane in the wrong direction, Gregor said.
Instead of flying south, the aircraft flew north toward the San Gabriel Mountains and an Air Canada jet that had departed from the north runway complex at LAX.
When the controller realized the mistake, she “took immediate action to keep EVA safely separated” from the second aircraft as well as ground terrain, Gregor said. She issued the EVA pilot a series of instructions to help him turn south.
“The controller wanted to make sure the EVA aircraft was safely above or away from nearby terrain,” he said.
In a statement issued Tuesday, EVA Air said, “Our flight was never too close to other aircraft or to the mountains.”
Flight controller accidentally sends jet on course toward Mt. Wilson after LAX takeoff - LA Times
Originally Posted by
.Scott
Another mishap sometimes associated with the 'shut up gringo' call is Avianca 410 in 1988. They were doing a high speed climb on a VMC departure into rising terrain and had a CFIT in the haze. The crew had trained at the Pan Am Flight Academy in Miami, I think that's where I first heard about the alleged GPWS response. Perhaps the urban legend came from a gallows comedian there.