Etihad EY440 - odd flightpath

[CharlieOneSix]

This is almost a day old now but I see no mention of it here or on TOP. EY440 departed Ho Chi Minh City bound for Abu Dhabi but tracked south before circling over the Malacca Straits and then diverting to Mumbai before later continuing to Abu Dhabi. Very, very odd and brings my mind back to the MH370 disappearance.

ey440.JPG (43.92 KiB) Viewed 565 times

[Sisemen]

Definitely peculiar. Maybe a low hours crew fazed because their GPS cut out

[CharlieOneSix]

This statement was issued by Etihad about this flight:

ey440-1.JPG (52.55 KiB) Viewed 538 times

Yeh, right, and I know when I've been bitten in the bum. Looks to me like a route change due to a massive cock-up in route programming which went undetected until they didn't have enough fuel to reach Abu Dhabi.

[Boac]

You have to ask what the crew were doing while they headed for KL on the way to Abu Dhabi............??

[admin]

IIRC there was another similar incident recently.

http://avherald.com/h?article=491733fa&opt=0

A Malaysia Airlines Airbus A330-300, registration 9M-MTG performing flight MH-132 from Auckland (New Zealand) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), was climbing out of Auckland on a southwesterly heading consistent with a flight track towards Sydney,NS (Australia), when the crew queried with air traffic control why they were heading that far south. Air Traffic Control cross checked and reported that they had received a flight plan to Kuala Lumpur taking the aircraft across the Tasman Sea on a southerly routing, enter Australia near Sydney and carry on towards Kuala Lumpur. The aircraft continued across the Tasman Sea, entered Australia just south of Sydney and landed safely in Kuala Lumpur on schedule.

Wonder what flight plan was lodged for MH370, and if it was wrong would the crew have noticed?

[MoreAviation]

These events are slightly reminiscent of the Varig 254 debacle...

http://aviationknowledge.wikidot.com/as ... imal-point

[500N]

More

I looked at that link. Never flown an aircraft but have done navigation.

I would have thought that most people would pick up they were flying the wrong way by all sorts of clues,
the compass pointing west for a start (instead of NNE), the sun being in the wrong position in the sky as they
flew - sun should have been coming in the right widows but would have been behind them if flying west).
And of course any major land marks but don't know that area so it might not be applicable.

Am I missing something ? (apart from slavishly following technology)