Narrative:

Climbing out of den on the spazz departure off runway 17R; climb via except maintain 10;000 ft. Hand flying. Approaching 10;000 ft; controller gave us direct spazz. Turned the aircraft and then controller called traffic one o'clock; ten miles; I thought I heard him say 'out of 11'. I thought it odd that he'd turn us towards a descending aircraft and proceeded to slow the climb. As we looked for traffic I made a remark to the first officer that I 'didn't like this'. As we were looking for traffic I may have climbed slightly above 10;000 ft. Controller then said '(call sign) verify you're climbing to 11;000 ft.' thinking I'd screwed up; I immediately raised the nose and started the aircraft towards 11 when the controller corrected himself and said '10;000 ft'. At that time we were about 10;350 ft. First officer and I looked at each other and there was an immediate discussion about what we were cleared to since the next waypoint we would've had was raydr; which is at or below 10;000 ft but once turned off the SID that shouldn't have applied. The aircraft was headed back down to 10;000 ft when we acquired and called the traffic. Controller then gave us a turn to 120 degrees. Started the turn and controller then gave the 'possible pilot deviation call this number'. When we got to [our destination] we called. ATC said the controller's instruction was 'direct spazz; maintain 10;000 ft.' neither of us recalled hearing the 'maintain 10;000 ft' and pm responded with 'direct spazz' with no altitude mentioned. They also claimed we'd not leveled off at 10;000 ft and got as high as 10;500 ft; and that we were at 10;300 ft when the controller queried us. They did acknowledge that the controller did say 11;000 ft at first and then corrected himself. They said that since we had the aircraft in sight; there wasn't a conflict but they would have to pass it up for review and would get back with us. I believe this was more of a controller error because when he asked us to verify we were climbing to 11;000 ft set the stage for the confusion that followed.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Pilot reports of a confusing transmission and instruction to climb to a different altitude then assigned and then descend back to the previously assigned altitude.

Narrative: Climbing out of DEN on the SPAZZ Departure off Runway 17R; climb via except maintain 10;000 ft. Hand flying. Approaching 10;000 ft; Controller gave us direct SPAZZ. Turned the aircraft and then Controller called traffic one o'clock; ten miles; I thought I heard him say 'out of 11'. I thought it odd that he'd turn us towards a descending aircraft and proceeded to slow the climb. As we looked for traffic I made a remark to the FO that I 'didn't like this'. As we were looking for traffic I may have climbed slightly above 10;000 ft. Controller then said '(call sign) verify you're climbing to 11;000 ft.' Thinking I'd screwed up; I immediately raised the nose and started the aircraft towards 11 when the Controller corrected himself and said '10;000 ft'. At that time we were about 10;350 ft. FO and I looked at each other and there was an immediate discussion about what we were cleared to since the next waypoint we would've had was RAYDR; which is at or below 10;000 ft but once turned off the SID that shouldn't have applied. The aircraft was headed back down to 10;000 ft when we acquired and called the traffic. Controller then gave us a turn to 120 degrees. Started the turn and Controller then gave the 'possible pilot deviation call this number'. When we got to [our destination] we called. ATC said the Controller's instruction was 'direct SPAZZ; maintain 10;000 ft.' Neither of us recalled hearing the 'maintain 10;000 ft' and PM responded with 'direct SPAZZ' with no altitude mentioned. They also claimed we'd not leveled off at 10;000 ft and got as high as 10;500 ft; and that we were at 10;300 ft when the Controller queried us. They did acknowledge that the Controller did say 11;000 ft at first and then corrected himself. They said that since we had the aircraft in sight; there wasn't a conflict but they would have to pass it up for review and would get back with us. I believe this was more of a Controller error because when he asked us to verify we were climbing to 11;000 ft set the stage for the confusion that followed.

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.