NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
CE-700 Captain reported a track deviation occurred when they mismanaged autoflight systems following a momentary wake turbulence encounter descending into IAD.
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.
During arrival we encountered wake turbulence from proceeding aircraft. The turbulence lasted just a few seconds. During that time the flying pilot pushed the heading bug and started slowing the aircraft. I didn’t see the heading selection and before either of us realized it Approach asked us if we were going to make the turn that we were going through and gave us a heading to rejoin the arrival. We didn’t deviate far or come close to any other aircraft. Nothing more was said to us from ATC.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Deviation - Track / Heading
- Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural
- Inflight Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Environment - Non Weather Related · Human Factors · Procedure
- Primary Problem
- Human Factors
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 ↗.