NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
EMB-145 flight crew reported encountering wake turbulence departing CLT that resulted in a track deviation.
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
Taking off from Runway 36C behind an Airbus A321 we encountered wake turbulence around 1200 ft. and the plane abruptly banked to the right and caused us to deviate from the SID. I recovered and Captain informed Tower and they gave us a heading and asked if we needed help. We replied negative and then were cleared direct RITR and continued flight. Suggestion: Separation behind other departing aircraft.
Reporter 2
During takeoff from Runway 36C, climbing via SID KRITR5 at 1260 feet, we encountered wake turbulence behind an Airbus. At 1260 feet we turned heading 330 degree per SID. Instead the aircraft banked to the right aggressively due to wake turbulence, causing us to deviate from SID. [We] lost the course, immediately informed CLT Tower asking for heading. CLT Tower asked if we need assistance. Replied “negative" vectored, then cleared direct to RITR and continued our flight. Suggestion: ATC must give us a separation behind an other aircraft for at least 3 min or more.
Analyst callback
ASRS analysts occasionally follow up with reporters by phone. These are the paraphrased additional notes from those conversations.
Reporter stated the wake encounter was more abrupt than anticipated.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Deviation - Track / Heading
- Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural
- 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 ↗.