Polish LOT Pilots Got Lost Over London Airspace

Thursday 12th June 2008

A Polish LOT Airlines flight deck crew with a failed navigation system ended up relient on air traffic information from Heathrow Airport despite having such a poor command of English they could not even tell the difference between East and West.

The Boeing 737 aircraft operated by Polish airline LOT had their navigations system shut down due to the co-pilot entering the incorrect details for the flight before they took off. The system is very similar to a car satellite navigation system. The aircraft was carrying a total of 89 passengers to Warsaw, however ended up flying around the skies of London for approximately half an hour due to the pilots being unsure of what was being communicated to them from the Heathrow control tower. According to a report on the incident by the Air Accidents Investigations Branch (AAIB) the co-pilot turned the aircraft in completely the opposite direction to the directions given from Heathrow air traffic control.

Even more alarming than this was that on one ocasion his wrong turn forced another aircraft to change its direction to avoid a possible collision. The category of this is listed as a "short term conflict alert" as it did not warrant a "near miss" as it was not close enough.

After some time the air traffic control tower managed to guide the pilots back to the airport so that they were able to visually see the runway upon which they executed a perfect landing. The incident, that occured in June 2007, has only been made public in the last few days, but is a worrying reminder of the English skills of many pilots flying from foreign countries. The Times have reported that only 15 of 800 Polish pilots that make international flights have a good enough command of the English language to enable them to pass the English language test for pilots.

It has long been the case that English is the accepted language for aviation and it is required that all pilots from whatever country they are from must have a good enough command of the English to be able to communicate with an airport. This becomes a little farcical however as many countries flout this rule and do not train their pilots with a sufficient level of English, even though a deadline of March 2008 was set for this to be completed.

The investigation by the AAIB included transcripts of radio conversations with the pilots of the LOT Airlines aircraft that showed that they were having problems with their navigational equipment. According to the report they were still not sure what had caused the problems when they landed at Heathrow Airport and were believed to be sure that a passenger on the aircraft using a mobile telephone had been the cause. The reality was that they had entered the incorrect co-ordinates before take-off however. The report states that this incident has made it clear how relient pilots have become on digital flight management systems compared with their methods employed years ago before the advent of modern technology.

The air traffic controllers were also criticised by the report for failing to recognise just how serious the LOT Airlines navigational problems were. LOT Airlines responded to the report by stating that they always have, and will continue to remind, their pilots of the importance of entering correct navigational data into their flight management systems.