Narrative:

At 5;000 feet on downwind encountered wake turbulence that caused aircraft to roll rapidly from right to left to right with bank angles approx. 30 degrees. The autopilot did not disengage and the aircraft recovered without incident. We asked ATC what we were following and they informed us we were following a heavy 777 that was following another heavy aircraft. We informed them we had experienced wake turbulence and gotten approx. 30 degrees of roll. At this point we had cleared the wake turbulence and asked for the max separation they could provide on approach. They informed us we had legal separation but would give us as much spacing as traffic would allow.ATC was helpful and accommodating and we continued the approach without further incident. ATC told us they were going to file a report so the event was on record and could be investigated. In my opinion there was no failure of any flight crew or ATC personnel. The purpose of this report is to provide a record of the event. It seems that there has been an increase in wake turbulence events lately which may require revisiting the current guidelines. Following multiple heavy aircraft even though we had proper separation. No errors were committed by any involved personnel; but separation policies may need to be reviewed.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ-200 Captain reported encountering wake turbulence in trail of a B777 on approach to ATL that resulted in rapid left and right rolls.

Narrative: At 5;000 feet on downwind encountered wake turbulence that caused aircraft to roll rapidly from right to left to right with bank angles approx. 30 degrees. The autopilot did not disengage and the aircraft recovered without incident. We asked ATC what we were following and they informed us we were following a heavy 777 that was following another heavy aircraft. We informed them we had experienced wake turbulence and gotten approx. 30 degrees of roll. At this point we had cleared the wake turbulence and asked for the max separation they could provide on approach. They informed us we had legal separation but would give us as much spacing as traffic would allow.ATC was helpful and accommodating and we continued the approach without further incident. ATC told us they were going to file a report so the event was on record and could be investigated. In my opinion there was no failure of any flight crew or ATC personnel. The purpose of this report is to provide a record of the event. It seems that there has been an increase in wake turbulence events lately which may require revisiting the current guidelines. Following multiple heavy aircraft even though we had proper separation. No errors were committed by any involved personnel; but separation policies may need to be reviewed.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.