The pilots of a TAP Air Portugal Airbus A330-900neo departing Los Angeles (LAX) for Lisbon (LIS) struggled to follow basic instructions, and made two mistakes just shortly after takeoff. Worst of all, the pilot working the radios was rather arrogant about it as well…

LAX ATC asks TAP Air Portugal pilots “are you okay?”

How did the TAP Air Portugal pilots screw up the departure?

Bottom line

YouTube channel You can see ATC has the air traffic control audio and a visualization of an incident that happened on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, involving a TAP Air Portugal plane departing Los Angeles. The tower controller cleared the plane for takeoff on runway 24L, and the pilots were instructed to initially fly to the DLREY fix.

The pilots then contacted the departures controller, though at this point they were flying the incorrect departure, as they turned south significantly earlier than they were supposed to.…