Malaysia airlines plane flew in the wrong direction

Flight MH132 heading directly from Auckland airport to Kuala Lumpur started heading south towards Melbourne. According to the , about eight minutes into the flight left at 2:23am, the pilot contacted air traffic controllers in Auckland to see why the flight was not taking a more direct path to Malaysia.

Without informing the passengers about the mix-up, he then steered the plane across the Tasman Sea and began heading Northwest to the Malaysian capital. A spokesman with airways-New Zealand’s air navigation provider said that a safety team would be investigating why it happened.

‘The flight plan the airline filed with us was going to Kuala Lumpur, but via a slightly different route than the pilot was expecting.’ She said.

New Zealand aviation commentator, Peter Clark said: “Planes sometimes travel across the south of Australia on the way to their destination to avoid a head clash, the pilot was probably not used to going that far south and did a very good job by noticing it, querying it and not just blindly flying off and ending up in the southern ocean.’