NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
EMB-505 Captain reported encountering wake turbulence on approach to LAS in trail of a B787.
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.
Cleared for the visual for [Runway] 26L following visual contact with a B787. We slowed down, 8 miles in trail, over Intersection PRINO at 8000 ft. MSL. We planned on going one dot above the glideslope. The aircraft hit the wake turbulence, tossing the aircraft into a 65-degree uncommanded left roll before counter inputs from my flying partner righted the ship. No altitude was lost and all control inputs felt normal after the encounter. We decided to continue the approach, flying above the glideslope, and no further wake was encountered. We promptly notified Tower of the incident and attempted to verbally contact Maintenance about my desire for a thorough mechanical inspection of the effects of the turbulence on the aircraft. I ended up having to write the aircraft up without speaking to Maintenance due to the extended hold time. Not sure if the EMB 505 is more susceptible to wake but maybe a study should be done about its susceptibility and perhaps an increased separation for this type of aircraft.
Analyst callback
ASRS analysts occasionally follow up with reporters by phone. These are the paraphrased additional notes from those conversations.
Reporter stated the roll was quite abrupt.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- 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 ↗.