MD-11
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Workload; Confusion; Communication Breakdown
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Chart Or Publication; Human Factors; Procedure
Arriving into LFPG; we were being vectored to the ILS 27R. The Captain had briefed the approach (normally the flying pilot briefs; but we decided to; at least; brief the CAT II information just in case the weather would happen to take a drastic turn for the worse) but we noticed during the brief our minimums differed by 10 FT. He realized he was looking at the chart for [Runway] 27L. So we reloaded and briefed; double checking our NAV display. Everything showed [Runway] 27R. We were cleared to intercept the LOC beyond where the FMS auto-tunes the frequency; so the Captain manually inserted it on the ILS page. Once we intercepted and started tracking the localizer; Approach asked us to confirm our runway. When we told him [Runway] 27R; he said we were lined up and tracking on [Runway] 27L. We all three (we had an IRO) checked again and our information on the NAV display still showed the right. The IRO finally noticed that on of the IDs didn't read 'PNW' (the ID for ILS 27R). I disconnected the autopilot and steered back to the right while the Captain reinserted the ILS another time. It tuned; and we landed without any further problem. [Neither] Approach nor Tower ever mentioned anything else about it. After we blocked it; we spent several minutes de-briefing trying to figure out what happened. We really don't know. All our NAV displays indicated [Runway] 27R. The only thing we could think of is that initially; when we were so far out and had to manually tune the ILS; he may have put in [Runway] 27L. Our NAV display showing [Runway] 27R; since that was what we'd loaded into the FMS. About the only thing I can think of is that on our approach checklist; we didn't notice the three letter ID not matching up. (Not unheard of; but more the exception than the rule; though; is that in the corner of that chart; there are two IDs. One for the ILS and one for the VOR that can be a bit confusing.) We should be very careful to verify each letter; not just checking to see if an ID is there.
Was First Officer's approach. Captain briefed a CATIII as a back up approach. During his CATIII brief I believe he put the ILS frequencies for [Runway] 27L into the NAV/RAD page - He should have placed the ILS frequency/ident for [Runway] 27R. During the approach the Captain hard tuned the ILS due to our distance from the runway and the plane tuned up the ILS for [Runway] 27L- we were cleared for [Runway] 27R. At this time I noticed the Ident on the First Officer PFD did not display the correct Ident for ILS 27R. At the same time Tower inquired if we were lined up on the correct runway. The Captain then discovered the error and hard tuned [Runway] 27R. We were approximately 12 miles from the field and plenty of time to correct. Landing was uneventful.
A MD-11 crew discovered on approach that they had set the LFPG ILS 27L frequency in the ILS instead of the Runway 27R but the IRO caught the error before ATC and not track deviation resulted.