A320
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Human-Machine Interface; Distraction; Communication Breakdown; Confusion
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation - Altitude Overshoot; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem
Procedure; Human Factors
After [so many] hours in the A320 I thought I had seen it all; but apparently not. This was the first flight of the day for this aircraft. The airplane had an overnight check and also an Auto Land test. When we first got in the cockpit it was not dark and on the init page of the Flight Management Guidance Envelope Computer (FMGC) it showed a flight plan of ZZZ/ZZZ [same airport]. We aligned the Inertial Reference System's (IRS) and put in the flight plan. We were filed to ZZZ1 using RNAV arrival which is a north flow arrival however we knew that ZZZ1 was landing south and put in the ILS XXR and we would get a different arrival when we got closer to ZZZ1. We had a 'RW LS MISMATCH' message in the scratch pad at this point which we both assumed was because of the south runway with the north arrival. We flew to ZZZ1 and as expected we were changed to a different fix arrival. It was a beautiful VFR day and we were told to expect the visual XXR. Of course we expected to have the ILS XXR to give us supplemental guidance to the runway as it was tuned in the FMGC's and the Nav displays showed ILS XXR. As usual we were pretty high and tight when approach had us turn to a 140 heading to intercept final for the visual. The FO (who's leg it was) engaged the approach mode but the airplane started to turn left and the localizer display showed deviated to the right and that's when I noticed that the localizer ID on the Primary Flight Display (PFD) instead of the ILS XXR freq and identifier of ZZZ2. I went to the RAD NAV page and saw 109.9 in large font which meant that 109.9 had been hard tuned. Once I cleared it we got the proper signal and we were headed for the runway. Meanwhile in the confusion we had descended below the glide slope but told my FO to just hold altitude and we would head in and reintercept the Glide Slope and continue the landing so we got back on profile around 900'AGL and about 3 miles out and made sure we were configured and we went to flaps full and and completed the landing. My FO suggested we maybe should have gone around but having flown into ZZZ1 for [many] years I was not uncomfortable completing the approach since it was Day VFR and we were looking right at the runway. I am sure the FOQA people will be calling cause we changed a flap setting and got fully configured under 1000' AGL which I normally agree with but I couldn't see going around once we had the situation figured out and under control. Sometimes you just have to look out the window and turn the automation off and just fly the flipping airplane.After we returned to [home airport] I visited Line Maintenance and asked them if they 'hard tuned' an unused ILS frequency when doing an Autoland check. They said yes but it should not be left hard tuned. Also looking at the [destination airport] area charts I noticed that although 109.9 is an unused frequency in the [departure airport] area it happens to be the ILS frequency for an airport near [the departure airport] so when the plane started to turn left when we thought we were intercepting the XXR localizer it was trying to go to the nearby airport. Had this been at night or poor visibility this could have gotten very interesting very fast. Thank goodness it was a beautiful day. I suppose the first clue we should have picked up on was the ZZZ/ZZZ flight plan and the second clue we missed was our misinterpreting the 'RW LS MISMATCH' message. It had nothing to do with our selection of the fix arrival with the ILS XXR approach but rather it is telling you that you have the wrong ILS frequency tuned! A very interesting morning and it just proves that you can't be complacent even in beautiful; weather and thousands of hours.
An A320 pilot reported that when the destination airport ILS was selected; the frequency defaulted to a previously 'Hard' tuned frequency. Once the Flight Crew cleared the 'Hard' frequency they got the proper signal for the ILS. Later it was uncovered that Maintenance had manually entered a unused frequency in the ILS for an Autoland test and had not cleared it. This frequency turned out to be the ILS for an airport nearby the destination airport.