An investigation into an AirAsia X flight that turned the wrong way after taking off from Sydney has revealed a litany of failures by the airline and crew.
Flight 223 to Kuala Lumpur on March 10, 2015 had to be guided to Melbourne to land after the captain inadvertently entered the wrong data in the flight computer.
An Australian Transport Safety Bureau report found the captain got the longitudinal position of the aircraft incorrect by 11,000 kilometres, sending the A330's on-board navigation system into a spin.
"Despite a number of opportunities to identify and correct the error, it was not noticed until after the aircraft became airborne and started tracking in the wrong direction." said the ATSB report.
"The ATSB also found that the aircraft was not fitted with an upgraded flight management system that would have prevented the data entry error via either automated initialisation or automatic correction of manual errors."