Narrative:

Upon initiation of descent near pmd into ont; lax center informed us he had a B757 report severe turbulence in the hitop area (on our arrival) at 15;000 ft within the last hour. I immediately attempted to contact dispatch through ACARS and was unable to get any response over an approximately four-minute time frame. We were handed off to the next controller and told to descend to 14;000 ft. We requested 17;000 ft due to the turbulence as we attempted to get a clearer picture of the situation. About this time SIGMET for mod-srv turbulence from 9000-15000 was issued. We informed ATC we could not descend to 15;000 ft or lower until clear of the SIGMET boundaries. At this time we still were unable to contact dispatch until I had them come up on frequency. We were in a very high task loading situation and ATC was extremely busy with aircraft and task loading due to weather in the area. Additionally; the frequency was highly saturated due to its use by many company stations in the area which delayed timely communication. Dispatch said to divert to lax. My first officer was doing an outstanding job coordinating with ATC and when we discussed the lax option; we noticed it would run us right through the SIGMET region. We decided san would be our best option and I re-initiated contact with dispatch on 131.7 and told him san is a better option. He agreed and we initiated a divert to san with lax center. At this point we were given a heading off the arrival and told to descend to 15;000 ft. We attempted to explain we could not accept 15;000 ft until clear of the turbulence area and after a bit of back and forth--amid other radio calls to ATC from other aircraft--we initiated a descent to 15;000 ft. There was confusion with ATC on the hand off because the next controller still thought we were going to attempt to land at ont. We clarified the situation and he gave us clearance 'direct tannr; V186; V66; mzb.' at this point we were about 15 NM from tannr but the clearance was incomplete and we could not program it into our MCP. We had to query the controller on the spelling of a fix and eventually asked what the intersection was at V186 and V66. At that point ATC realized they left that out (should have been 'tannr V186 haile V66 mzb'). Again; super task loaded for ATC as well as us; but this was a critical piece of the clearance. Once we finally had it loaded correctly (we had to verify the spelling of this fix as well with ATC because it was unclear over the radio); ATC gave us a vector and said something about a possible 'pilot deviation.' we continued the divert to san uneventfully.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737 flight crew reported extreme weather conditions prompted the crew to divert to a more suitable airport.

Narrative: Upon initiation of descent near PMD into ONT; LAX Center informed us he had a B757 report severe turbulence in the HITOP area (on our arrival) at 15;000 ft within the last hour. I immediately attempted to contact Dispatch through ACARS and was unable to get any response over an approximately four-minute time frame. We were handed off to the next Controller and told to descend to 14;000 ft. We requested 17;000 ft due to the turbulence as we attempted to get a clearer picture of the situation. About this time SIGMET for MOD-SRV turbulence from 9000-15000 was issued. We informed ATC we could not descend to 15;000 ft or lower until clear of the SIGMET boundaries. At this time we still were unable to contact Dispatch until I had them come up on frequency. We were in a very high task loading situation and ATC was extremely busy with aircraft and task loading due to weather in the area. Additionally; the frequency was highly saturated due to its use by many Company Stations in the area which delayed timely communication. Dispatch said to divert to LAX. My FO was doing an outstanding job coordinating with ATC and when we discussed the LAX option; we noticed it would run us right through the SIGMET region. We decided SAN would be our best option and I re-initiated contact with Dispatch on 131.7 and told him SAN is a better option. He agreed and we initiated a divert to SAN with LAX Center. At this point we were given a heading off the arrival and told to descend to 15;000 ft. We attempted to explain we could not accept 15;000 ft until clear of the turbulence area and after a bit of back and forth--amid other radio calls to ATC from other aircraft--we initiated a descent to 15;000 ft. There was confusion with ATC on the hand off because the next Controller still thought we were going to attempt to land at ONT. We clarified the situation and he gave us clearance 'direct TANNR; V186; V66; MZB.' At this point we were about 15 NM from TANNR but the clearance was incomplete and we could not program it into our MCP. We had to query the Controller on the spelling of a fix and eventually asked what the intersection was at V186 and V66. At that point ATC realized they left that out (should have been 'TANNR V186 HAILE V66 MZB'). Again; super task loaded for ATC as well as us; but this was a critical piece of the clearance. Once we finally had it loaded correctly (we had to verify the spelling of this fix as well with ATC because it was unclear over the radio); ATC gave us a vector and said something about a possible 'Pilot Deviation.' We continued the divert to SAN uneventfully.

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.