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An air carrier first officer climbing to FL280 with FL290 traffic ahead; misinterpreted his TCAS RA red/green visual cues and continued climbing with the vsi needle in the red band. The FL290 aircraft crew took evasive action to the climbing traffic RA.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 1307058 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201510 |
| Local Time Of Day | 1201-1800 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | ZZZ.ARTCC |
| State Reference | US |
| Environment | |
| Flight Conditions | VMC |
| Light | Daylight |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | MD-80 Series (DC-9-80) Undifferentiated or Other Model |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 121 |
| Flight Phase | Climb |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Aircraft 2 | |
| Make Model Name | MD-80 Series (DC-9-80) Undifferentiated or Other Model |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 121 |
| Flight Phase | Cruise |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Component | |
| Aircraft Component | Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | Captain Pilot Not Flying |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) |
| Person 2 | |
| Function | Pilot Flying Captain |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Flight Engineer |
| Experience | Flight Crew Last 90 Days 210 Flight Crew Total 15500 Flight Crew Type 9840 |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | Conflict Airborne Conflict Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Altitude Overshoot Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy |
Narrative:
We were climbing enroute. We were given FL280 as an altitude to climb to. Autopilot was on. ATC called traffic about 10 o'clock above us at FL290. As the aircraft climbed through about 27;700 the TCAS gave us an RA to adjust vertical climb. The first officer took off the auto-pilot; not unusual when receiving an RA. I scanned the outside for the traffic and saw them; alerting the first officer I had the traffic in sight. I glanced down and saw we were at 28;150 feet and climbing. I told him to 'stop the climb!' we leveled at 28;200 and reversed down to 28;000 feet. Then the first officer told me for an unknown reason he got the meaning of the red and green arcs confused and was thinking he needed to keep the vsi needle in the red arc. When I told him to stop the climb he said he immediately realized what he was doing wrong.perhaps if the first officer would have left the autopilot on the capture of 28;000 would have been better; however I see that the autopilot routinely will capture and climb 100 feet high; then come back down to the correct altitude. The RA came on before he took off the autopilot; so the RA was not a result of our altitude getting to 28;200.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: An air carrier First Officer climbing to FL280 with FL290 traffic ahead; misinterpreted his TCAS RA red/green visual cues and continued climbing with the VSI needle in the red band. The FL290 aircraft crew took evasive action to the climbing traffic RA.
Narrative: We were climbing enroute. We were given FL280 as an altitude to climb to. Autopilot was on. ATC called traffic about 10 o'clock above us at FL290. As the aircraft climbed through about 27;700 the TCAS gave us an RA to adjust vertical climb. The FO took off the auto-pilot; not unusual when receiving an RA. I scanned the outside for the traffic and saw them; alerting the FO I had the traffic in sight. I glanced down and saw we were at 28;150 feet and climbing. I told him to 'Stop the Climb!' We leveled at 28;200 and reversed down to 28;000 feet. Then the FO told me for an unknown reason he got the meaning of the red and green arcs confused and was thinking he needed to keep the VSI needle in the Red arc. When I told him to stop the climb he said he immediately realized what he was doing wrong.Perhaps if the FO would have left the autopilot on the capture of 28;000 would have been better; however I see that the autopilot routinely will capture and climb 100 feet high; then come back down to the correct altitude. The RA came on before he took off the autopilot; so the RA was not a result of our altitude getting to 28;200.
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.