BA lands at WRONG airport - Edinburgh instead of Dusseldorf

[Hotel Tango]

SID for EDDL would be via CLN or DVR while a SID to EGPH would be via BPK.

Did the cockpit crew not question with ATC why they were given a northern departure? Clearly not....

Since the company (WDL) flies to various destinations from LCY on behalf of CityFlyer (including EDI) it would appear that as far as they were concerned their paperwork and Flight Plan stipulated EDI as their destination. They therefore had no reason to question the SID received as it corresponded to the destination THEY were given by the company.

[ProPax]

Originally Posted by Daverb

Pilots too disconnected from the cabin now?

As opposed to, say, Amelia Earhart?

[dc9-32]

Since the company (WDL) flies to various destinations from LCY on behalf of CityFlyer (including EDI) it would appear that as far as they were concerned their paperwork and Flight Plan stipulated EDI as their destination. They therefore had no reason to question the SID received as it corresponded to the destination THEY were given by the company.

I disagree. The crew were expecting (and rostered) to fly to DUS so anything relating to EDI should have raised alarm bells in the pre-flight stage.

[golfbananajam]

Originally Posted by ProPax

Märzfest?

I remember the good times when news like this were destined for the humor pages. In this day and age, BBC talks about it like someone rotated the Earth in the wrong direction. Come on! People lost 2-3 hours but now have a story to laugh about. "A German pilot flew us in the wrong direction, HAHAHAHA!" Relax!

Imagine you're a few hours late for your business appointment or you miss a connection or a family funeral or a family wedding or any other reason to be where you expect to be, all of a sudden not so funny eh!

Also didn't read anything about the pilot being German

[diffident]

Sky News have cottoned onto this now, delightfully showing stock footage of BA 747-400's!!

[Hotel Tango]

I disagree. The crew were expecting (and rostered) to fly to DUS so anything relating to EDI should have raised alarm bells in the pre-flight stage.

You don't know that for sure. My wife, a former F/A, was well acquainted with last minute operational changes. We are not party to what conversations took place between the Captain and dispatch. He was obviously convinced he was now going to EDI and that was that. I certainly disagree with you that he would happily have flown a different SID to the one in the FPL he was presented with.

[staircase]

Had this sort of thing myself just after computer rostering and flight plans first became the norm in the eighties.

Checked into the crew room expecting to go to AGP from my roster, and was given the paper work by ops for AGP.

As the passengers were loading we called ground for the clearance, and was given one to Alicante. No says I, AGP, wrong says the man on clearance delivery, your flight plan is Alicante.

Solved it easy enough by going into the cabin and asking a bunch of passengers where they wanted to go, and it was Alicante, so that is where we ended up!!

[dc9-32]

I didn't suggest the crew would happily have flown a different SID to the one on the FPL. But if the crew were expecting to fly to DUS and were present with a FPL that said EDI, they must surely have questioned it with someone before engine start. Why on earth would a crew just assume their paperwork is right when their roster said something else? In almost 40 years in this business, I don't know of any crew who have not at least questioned a change to confirm everyone agrees and accepts so as to continue.

[racedo]

Guess that will end the BA folk sniggering at Ryanair because a "eirjet" chartered in landed at Ballykelly instead of City of Derry all those years ago.

[WHBM]

The same thing happened with an MD-80 in Spain some years ago, and the circumstances look similar. Mainstream carrier (it was Spanair then) has wet-leased in an aircraft, including the dispatch of it, from a foreign carrier (that was from a Scandinavian charter company), so the crew did little/no PA and local cabin crew did it all. That flight, from Madrid, went south to Valencia instead of north to Santiago. The crew had just done a Valencia round trip, and their paperwork just had them down for a second one. Meanwhile all the passenger-facing side has them announced as going in the opposite direction. Everything of course was flightplanned and organised correctly by the crew for where they were told to fly to, it was only when they contacted handling on arrival they found they were not expected.

Strangely, on that occasion it was IMC throughout and the pax never noticed. Today it's been pretty much CAVOK for the last two days. Did none of the pax query the routing when in flight ?

[ATC Watcher]

These things unfortunately happens rarely but regularly ( wrong bus at outside position , change of aircraft last minute , swapped crew briefing papers, change in planning message stuck somewhere , etc..) but almost all the time it is discovered either at boarding ( F/A checking boarding passes,) or at first PA announcement before of while taxiing ( our flight time to xxx is ..) a very rare couple of times right after departure , again after a Crew PA announcement, therefore it is very rarely ending at the wrong destination.
I would bet, you will find in this case a lot of holes in the cheese , and the fact is as well that today these kind of things end immediately on twitter and are picked up by media...

[Midland 331]

I recall it happening a few times to Midland in the days of coaching to the November stands at Heathrow. It was usually caught by the cabin crew or when the No1/Capt. gave a welcome message.

[WHBM]

BA of course don't check boarding passes at the door any more. And the last time I was on a BA wet-lease (Danish carrier Jettime, LHR-ABZ) both flight deck and cabin crew made little/no PA at all apart from a BA safety briefing script they had been given.

[Hotel Tango]

But if the crew were expecting to fly to DUS and were present with a FPL that said EDI, they must surely have questioned it with someone before engine start.

The point is that we don't know what was or what wasn't said. Obviously the crew were somehow or other convinced and not particularly surprised to be going to EDI, only the passengers! As ATC Watcher says, a lot of holes in the cheese must have lined up.

Not too dissimilar to this I remember a day I was on duty when we questioned an aircraft's unexpected turn over a way point and questioned their intentions. They replied that they were following their flight plan route. We asked confirmation of their destination and discovered it was different to the one in the FPL we had received. In this case it turned out that the crew got one set of paperwork (the correct set) but that their ops had sent an incorrect FPL to ATC. Of course the SID and initial routing was the same until they got to that way point in our airspace and only then was the discrepancy noticed. So, these things happen.

[Dualbleed]

Maybe even their roster showed EDI at publication, so no questions asked. Obviously a c..ck up but no safety implications whatsoever. Should be moved to the humour section.

[EEngr]

Originally Posted by ProPax

As opposed to, say, Amelia Earhart?

I was thinking Wrong Way Corrigan.

[rog747]

Incredible ! beggars belief that not one passenger noticed that they were flying North and never went over the water (Channel) durrrrr
ACMI lease from WDL aviation Gmbh of DE. (146??) - nice views lol

Still nice load of EU compo 361 - This is def not extraordinary circumstances - its a stuff up.

Worst we ever did at BMA LHR was MME bags put on the LPL and LPL bags on the MME
2 x DC-9's parked next to each other

I think we did it at JER as well - wrong bags and pax on wrong a/c but don't think pax ever ended up in wrong place

[skua]

The days of the "world's favourite airline" seem very distant......

[ZOOKER]

It will all be sorted out later this year when the Aerodrome Controllers at EGLC are operating from the new NATS Digital Bunker down at Swan Wick.

[JanetFlight]

Hard Brexit ...!!???