Narrative:

We departed and were given an initial heading of 090. After being handed off to cleveland center; we were cleared direct to fnt on course. The first officer selected fnt and placed it at the top of prog page one executed. Then I thought he selected LNAV; but failed to verify it. Our heading of 090 was very closely aligned with the course to fnt so we didn't notice that we were not proceeding direct to fnt. Once we passed over fnt; we continued on our 090 heading instead of proceeding on course to our next waypoint. Approximately 50 miles past fnt; cleveland called and asked what our clearance was and we noticed we were off course. We notified them we were off course and requested on course. We were cleared direct to our next waypoint and continued our flight without further incident.the first officer and I should pay better attention and verify that what automation mode we select is actually executed properly.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-700 flight crew reported a track deviation resulted from their failure to verify auto flight mode.

Narrative: We departed and were given an initial heading of 090. After being handed off to Cleveland Center; we were cleared direct to FNT on course. The FO selected FNT and placed it at the top of PROG page one executed. Then I thought he selected LNAV; but failed to verify it. Our heading of 090 was very closely aligned with the course to FNT so we didn't notice that we were not proceeding direct to FNT. Once we passed over FNT; we continued on our 090 heading instead of proceeding on course to our next waypoint. Approximately 50 miles past FNT; Cleveland called and asked what our clearance was and we noticed we were off course. We notified them we were off course and requested on course. We were cleared direct to our next waypoint and continued our flight without further incident.The FO and I should pay better attention and verify that what automation mode we select is actually executed properly.

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.