An air carrier captain flying a phx arrival into the sun followed a TCAS RA climb; but because of hi...

Narrative:

We saw a small cessna sized GA plane approaching us from the south. Just as ATC was advising us of the plane; we got a TA followed immediately by an RA to climb. I clicked off the autopilot and tried to follow the TCAS advisory on the pfd but was unable to see the advisory because of sun glare off my white uniform shirt reflecting a very bright setting sun. The glare in the pfd was so bright I could not make out the vertical speed red advisory indication so I simply pulled back to effect a climb and disconnected the autothrottles and added power. My first officer communicated with ATC that we were in a TCAS climb. We were soon clear of conflict but I still was unable to clearly see my pfd and as we started the recovery; the plane dipped below and crossing altitude for esdee by 400 ft.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier Captain flying a PHX arrival into the sun followed a TCAS RA climb; but because of his white shirt's glare in the PFD; was unable to see the Vertical Speed TCAS advisory and so executed an escape maneuver to assure separation.

Narrative: We saw a small Cessna sized GA plane approaching us from the south. Just as ATC was advising us of the plane; we got a TA followed immediately by an RA to climb. I clicked off the autopilot and tried to follow the TCAS advisory on the PFD but was unable to see the advisory because of sun glare off my white uniform shirt reflecting a very bright setting sun. The glare in the PFD was so bright I could not make out the Vertical Speed Red Advisory indication so I simply pulled back to effect a climb and disconnected the autothrottles and added power. My First Officer communicated with ATC that we were in a TCAS climb. We were soon clear of conflict but I still was unable to clearly see my PFD and as we started the recovery; the plane dipped below and crossing altitude for ESDEE by 400 FT.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1002796
Time
Date	201203
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	PHX.Airport
State Reference	AZ
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Route In Use	STAR EAGUL
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Conflict Airborne Conflict Deviation - Altitude Crossing Restriction Not Met Deviation - Procedural Other / Unknown

An air carrier captain flying a phx arrival into the sun followed a TCAS RA climb; but because of his white shirt's glare in the pfd; was unable to see the vertical speed TCAS advisory and so executed an escape maneuver to assure separation.