NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
EMB-170 flight crew reported encountering wake turbulence climbing out of FL290 departing PHX. Reporter stated he believes PHX Tower procedures contributed to the encounter.
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 narratives
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.
Reporter 1
When preparing for take off on Runway 07R in PHX, we were holding short of Runway 7R we were asked to line up and wait and verify we have the departing traffic in sight. We obviously could see the aircraft departing as it was right in front of us. We informed ATC that we had the aircraft in sight. I’ve been asked to do this with every takeoff out of PHX. We believe this is so they can launch aircraft quicker and relieving them of any separation responsibilities. When you don’t respond the way they ask you to you get penalized (they will allow other aircraft to takeoff before you). Nineteen minutes after takeoff we encountered turbulence due to the preceding aircraft in front of us which rolled the aircraft to around 30 degrees. There weren’t any injuries and the flight was completed successfully but I do believe this is due to the small amount of separation during takeoff. The wake turbulence event happened at FL290. Have more of a delay before launching aircraft so we can avoid wake turbulence.
Reporter 2
[Report narrative contained no additional information.]
Analyst callback
ASRS analysts occasionally follow up with reporters by phone. These are the paraphrased additional notes from those conversations.
Reporter reiterated that the unique procedures employed by PHX Tower may have contributed to the event.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Inflight Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Procedure
- Primary Problem
- Procedure
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 ↗.