An Eva Air flight flew a little too close to a mountain peak in California, the USA due to wrong air traffic instructions. The Eva Air Boeing 777 was flying to Taipei in Taiwan from Los Angeles in December 2016 when the incident occurred. Reportedly, the air traffic controller confused right with left while delivering instructions that could have led to a great disaster. The incident happened immediately after Eva Air flight 015 left Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). The US National Transportation Safety Board in a report following the investigation said that the Southern California Terminal (SCT) controller told pilots to head left towards the rising terrain while they were actually supposed to go to the right.

The controller told the pilots of the Boeing 777-300, which was headed to Taipei, to "turn left heading of 180, climb and maintain 7000" shortly after departure. According to the weather around the airport at the time, planes had to take off to east rather than west. Saudi Plane Forced to Return Immediately After Take-Off As Mother Forgets Baby at Airport.

About 41 seconds later, the controller said: "turn right, right turn heading one eight zero." The controller then told pilots to turn right to avoid an Air Canada Boeing 788 that had also recently left the airport. The controller then instructed to "stop your climb" and "turn left, left turn to a heading of ah, two nine ah, correction two seven zero." When the plane was to turn, the controller said "What are you doing? Turn southbound now, southbound now. Stop your climb. I see you're going southbound, turn south. Correction, I see you going northbound now. Turn south now, climb and maintain seven thousand." Chinese Man Throws Coins Into Lucky Air Plane's Engine Hoping For a Safe Flight, Airline Sues Him.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determines the probable cause of the incident as saying, "The incident was caused by the air traffic controller assigning the pilots a left turn instead of the required right turn after departure which placed the aircraft in unsafe proximity with terrain and obstruction. Contributing to the incident was the air traffic controller's inadequate recovery technique during the development of the incident." The Eva Air flight was at an altitude of about 6200ft when it turned and passed within 1600ft of Mount Wilson, a 5700ft peak with a 950ft antennae.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on May 16, 2019 05:01 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).