AirAsia Plane Lands in Wrong Damn Country Due to Pilot Error

You ever been on a plane that landed in the wrong country? These people have.

Not Available Lead
Image via Complex Original
Not Available Lead

Perhaps the most annoying part about flying isn't the shitty peanuts, the drunk millionaires, or even the screaming newborn babies. No. Maybe it's all those times you take a quick nap on the plane and awake to find yourself in the wrong damn country. Am I right? Of course not. That never happens. Except, of course, when it totally does.

An AirAsia flight from Sydney, Australia initially bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ended up touching down in Melbourne instead. Yep. Melbourne. The screw-up was uncovered in a just-released Australian aviation investigative report, according toCNN. The flight, holding 212 presumably peeved passengers, was guided to Melbourne on Mar. 10 of last year after a pilot incorrectly entered the wrong coordinates while manually using the plane's navigation systems.

"The flight crew attempted to troubleshoot and rectify the situation while under heavy workload," the report from the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) found. "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." In response to this error, the ATSB has updated training procedures using this screw-up as an example of exactly what a pilot should not do.

In a statement sent to CNN Wednesday, AirAsia confirmed that they have also upgraded their flight management systems since sending peeps to the wrong damn country. "AirAsia X would like to stress that we have in place robust management systems to monitor and prevent similar incidents from reoccurring," a spokesperson said.

After spending a grueling 3 hours on the ground in Melbourne, the flight eventually made its way to Malaysia. So, you know, at least this whole fiasco has a semi-happy ending.

Latest in Life