A Typo Spawned a 212-Story Tower Amid Melbourne Suburb in Microsoft Flight Simulator

We are only human and mistakes do happen but sometimes, the outcome of such errors are exceptionally fun. Recently, Microsoft Flight Simulator saw a mistake cause a gigantic 212-story tower to appear in its representation of a quiet suburban Melbourne neighborhood.

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In Microsoft Flight Simulator a bizarrely eldritch, impossibly narrow skyscraper pierces the skies of Melbourne's North like a suburban Australian version of Half-Life 2's Citadel, and I am -all for it- pic.twitter.com/6AH4xgIAWg

— Alexander Muscat (@alexandermuscat) August 19, 2020

Since the program prides itself on being extremely realistic the apparition caused quite a stir with many Flight Simulator users rushing to figure out what happened. With some good detective work, they discovered that the event was the result of a typo.

A year ago, "nathanwright120" made an edit to @openstreetmap , adding a tag that indicates that a building in the suburb of Fawkner in Melbourne, Australia, had 212 floors instead of 2. All his other edits of openstreetmap seem legit, so it appears to have been a typo... (1/2) pic.twitter.com/Mwh1LBu3ap

— Liam O 🦆 (@liamosaur) August 20, 2020

It turns out that developer Asobo Studio builds its landmarks by using data from OpenStreetMap. Sort of like Wikipedia but for maps, this is a free open-source map of the world to which anyone can add details.

Last year, a user named “nathanwright120” wrote a post that indicated that this one building in the suburb of Fawkner in Melbourne had 212 floors instead of two. Further research on the contributions of nathanwright120 would indicate that the edit was a typo, not a prank.

The mistake was indeed corrected by another OpenStreetMap user, but clearly not before Flight Simulator used the data for its extremely credible renditions. The end result was a giant tower that appears to come out of nowhere and towers over Melbourne.

We have no doubt that Microsoft will be rushing to correct this mistake so if you are a proud owner of the program make sure to check out the tower before it disappears.