B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Dispatch Dispatcher
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Human Factors
PIC contacted Dispatch via ACARS to query their filed flight plan. Crew began checking their route after departure and discovered that the flight had been inadvertently filed into Oceanic (Class II) Airspace. I assisted crew with a route out of the Class II airspace within their fuel onboard to allow continuation of the flight in accordance with FAR. Flight continued without further incident.Upon further review; it appears as though the planning Dispatcher attempted to utilize route optimization while planning and even though they had selected Class I as the mission type (proper selection for the equipment type assigned to the flight); the flight planning software does not guard against planning that aircraft through Class II airspace even though Class I was selected. The planning Dispatcher appears to have failed to double-check the route for compliance with FAR and equipment capabilities. The error was not identified until after flight departure; but before entering Class II airspace.
I was training a new dispatcher who had only been on a desk for 2 days. We had already gone through our last 'Sector Analysis' for the day and planned our last set of flights. We had discussed different ways to update temperatures and pressures for the day. The question came up; 'can we just re-plan from the sector analysis to update the temperatures'. I said that we can but a lot of times it will lose data from the sector analysis. Which it did. It brought back incorrect temperatures; dew points and lost 1 of the 2 runways that were on our plan. We input those back manually and reran the plan.What I did not catch was that in hitting the 'Reset/Plan' button on 'Monitor'; it also removed the route. The route that I filed is a User Defined route that the computer chose in response to my use of the 'Reset/Plan' button. I have never used the 'User Defined' route option on an international flight. And when I do use that option for domestic routes; I don't leave the route field blank as was planned by the computer on this route. I input the route using the closest preferred departure and arrival routes; and then fill in the middle with what the computer might come up with for the best winds (for example).Please note that I used the phrase above; 'the computer chose (the route)'. This is not to try to blame the computer for my error in not catching the change in route. It is used to point out that by my use of the 'Reset/Plan' button a second time the route that I had already planned was tossed out and filled in with a 'blank' which the computer sees as a command for it to choose its own route. My relief called me after my shift and informed me of the error but that the crew and/or himself had changed the route prior to it going over the Gulf illegally.
Air carrier dispatchers reported an illegal flight plan was generated that would have taken the aircraft into Class II airspace had the error not been caught in time.