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Wrong flight plan filed, flight goes to Edinburgh instead of Dusseldorf

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Ian Petchenik

Updated: March 25, 2019

Earlier this morning, a WDL Aviation flight operating for British Airways mistakenly filed paperwork to Edinburgh instead of Düsseldorf and landed in the Scottish city 844 kilometers away from its correct destination. After waiting for nearly 2 hours in Edinburgh, the aircraft departed again and landed in Düsseldorf about 1:00 pm local time.

It is unclear at this point how the paperwork for the flight was mistakenly filed to the wrong city, but the pilot and cabin crew were apparently unaware they weren’t supposed to go to Edinburgh until the passengers took notice upon landing.

BA3271

BA3271, operated by WDL Aviation, departed London City airport at 7:46 am local time and should have arrived in Düsseldorf at 9:40 am local time. Because of the mistakenly filed flight plan, the aircraft landed in Edinburgh at 9:00am.

Off to Germany

After sitting on the ground in Edinburgh for 100 minutes, the aircraft departed for Düsseldorf at 10:40 and arrived about 13:00.

Published: March 25, 2019

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Ian Petchenik

Ian Petchenik’s love of aviation began at an early age growing up next to Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. As Flightradar24’s director of communications and co-host of the AvTalk podcast Ian now gets to share that passion for aviation with millions of Flightradar24 users and listeners around the world.

Ian Petchenik

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