Narrative:

On departure we were cleared from runway heading to right turn direct 'qatar'; a waypoint not on our flight plan that had been assigned in our initial clearance on the ground. We departed runway 23L and the FMS/ flight director concurred with ATC's right turn instructions showing an approximately 020 course. Through about a heading of 320 ATC called saying we appeared to be turning north and assigned a 'heading of 270 direct qatar when able'. We complied turning to a heading of 270 and began to troubleshoot why ATC issued a 270 heading for a fix that we believed we were already turning to a course of 020. It was only after we zoomed out on the mfd that we realized that qatar was quite a bit out of the way to the northeast. The fuel was now showing -2000 on arrival and the time enroute 2+ hours. We queried ATC; still confused as to where qatar was relative to our 270 heading. I was convinced that he had the correct fix because the clearance controller phonetically spelled it out and the FMS confirmed the fix to be on the east coast of the us and our time to destination and fuel upon arrival at the time of route verification matched our flight plan. ATC finally spelled the fix as catar which we entered and appeared at our 12 o'clock. The flight continued without further incidenti must have misheard the spelling of the fix during the clearance. I was given two spelled fixes during the clearance. 'Qatar' and 'sdail'. Both were phonetically spelled out by the controller. Qatar; seemed very straight forward so I elected to not phonetically spell it back to the controller during the read back. Sdail seemed more unusual so I phonetically spelled it back to the controller during the read back. I should have spelled both. Sdail was on the chsly 3 arrival which my partner and I verified thoroughly during the route verification. Having received the spelling phonetically during the clearance and the enroute time and fuel at destination and distance all matching up with the flight plan and having the chsly 3 arrival chart available for verification; it never occurred to either of us to type the fix 'qatar' into our ipads. I always do this when the route is not as filed so as to have something to verify it against. The other thing we could have done that might have caught the misspelling; was to zoom further out far enough on the pfd to see qatar before we began the turn towards it. Additional suggestions- I will be more wary of voice clearances; especially when pre departure clearance is available in general at an airport but not for a specific flight. This situation would have been avoided if a pre departure clearance clearance was used. I requested it; but it was not available; so I presumed the close proximity to clt dictated the necessity for a voice clearance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The flight crew of a Cessna Citation reported that when they programed the Flight Management System they misspelled a waypoint.

Narrative: On departure we were cleared from runway heading to right turn direct 'QATAR'; a waypoint not on our flight plan that had been assigned in our initial clearance on the ground. We departed runway 23L and the FMS/ flight director concurred with ATC's right turn instructions showing an approximately 020 course. Through about a heading of 320 ATC called saying we appeared to be turning north and assigned a 'heading of 270 direct QATAR when able'. We complied turning to a heading of 270 and began to troubleshoot why ATC issued a 270 heading for a fix that we believed we were already turning to a course of 020. It was only after we zoomed out on the MFD that we realized that QATAR was quite a bit out of the way to the northeast. The fuel was now showing -2000 on arrival and the time enroute 2+ hours. We queried ATC; still confused as to where QATAR was relative to our 270 heading. I was convinced that he had the correct fix because the clearance controller phonetically spelled it out and the FMS confirmed the fix to be on the east coast of the US and our time to destination and fuel upon arrival at the time of route verification matched our flight plan. ATC finally spelled the fix as CATAR which we entered and appeared at our 12 o'clock. The flight continued without further incidentI must have misheard the spelling of the fix during the clearance. I was given two spelled fixes during the clearance. 'QATAR' and 'SDAIL'. Both were phonetically spelled out by the controller. QATAR; seemed very straight forward so I elected to not phonetically spell it back to the controller during the read back. SDAIL seemed more unusual so I phonetically spelled it back to the controller during the read back. I should have spelled both. SDAIL was on the CHSLY 3 arrival which my partner and I verified thoroughly during the route verification. Having received the spelling phonetically during the clearance and the Enroute time and fuel at destination and distance all matching up with the flight plan and having the CHSLY 3 arrival chart available for verification; it never occurred to either of us to type the fix 'QATAR' into our iPads. I always do this when the route is not as filed so as to have something to verify it against. The other thing we could have done that might have caught the misspelling; was to zoom further out far enough on the PFD to see QATAR before we began the turn towards it. Additional suggestions- I will be more wary of voice clearances; especially when PDC is available in general at an airport but not for a specific flight. This situation would have been avoided if a PDC clearance was used. I requested it; but it was not available; so I presumed the close proximity to CLT dictated the necessity for a voice clearance.

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.