NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
CRJ-900 Captain reported encountering wake turbulence departing JFK in trail of a B757, noting that the recovery required full aileron deflection.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narrative
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
We were departing Runway 22R at JFK. I was PM (Pilot Monitoring) and FO (First Officer) was PF (Pilot Flying). A 757 was the departure prior to us. After the 757 started its departure roll we were instructed to line up and wait. After a short wait, we were given a takeoff clearance for runway heading up to 5000. At 600 ft. AGL the FO called for the autopilot and it was turned on. On schedule the FO commanded an acceleration for clean up. As we were accelerating at roughly 1300 ft. AGL the aircraft entered an uncommanded roll to the right and reached approximately 20-25 degrees of bank. The autopilot kicked off and the FO promptly reestablished control via his yoke. We were about 170-180 KIAS and the FO held a full scale left deflection of his control wheel to stop the roll and return the aircraft to a 0 degree bank. The aircraft rolled notably slower than what I would expect for the amount of control input. I helped talk the FO into fixing the rest of the deviations caused by the sudden roll and we re-established a climb and turn to an ATC assigned heading. I felt that we were a normal distance behind the 757 from what I've experienced at JFK and other large hub airports for being in trail of 757 or heavy aircraft. We were fairly heavy with a somewhat forward CG, so it wouldn't surprise me if the 757 was outperforming us on the initial climb, especially if they were lightly loaded. The winds were also fairly sporadic in the NYC area. The surface winds were generally 10 kts. or so during our departure. But up at 4000 ft. they were closer to 40-50 kts. so it also wouldn't be surprising if the wake turbulence was dissipating at unequal rates based on the odd shifts in the winds during initial climb. We were perhaps too close and following the 757 for too long as indicated by the fact that we hit their wake. Perhaps a sooner turn from ATC after departure or us performing a full thrust takeoff to get off the ground quicker and above the wake sooner could have avoided the encounter.
Analyst callback
ASRS analysts occasionally follow up with reporters by phone. These are the paraphrased additional notes from those conversations.
Reporter stated he was surprised by the intensity of the roll.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Ground Event / Encounter
- Inflight Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Environment - Non Weather Related · Procedure
- Primary Problem
- Ambiguous
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.