B737-700 first officer reported that during climb; the captain tried to press level change; but the ...

Attributes
ACN	1492779
Time
Date	201710
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737-700
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb Initial Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Not Flying First Officer
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Type 564
Events
Anomaly	Conflict Airborne Conflict Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

Narrative:

We were on the [SID] from [the airport]. We took off in LNAV; which I verified silently at 400 ft because the captain doesn't make any calls or communicate in any way. Sometime between 400 ft and when we were supposed to start the turn (at 1.8 DME); the captain tried to press level change but inadvertently selected heading mode. Since the autopilot was on; the aircraft followed runway heading and didn't make the turn. I was calling departure and didn't notice that he had changed modes. When we realized the error; he started a turn to heading 123; but since we had started the turn fairly late; we were still off course. During the turn; we got an RA for traffic; but it was not an issue. ATC never said anything to us about the error and eventually gave us a turn to another heading.some communication between crew members would have been helpful. This captain likes to press a lot of buttons and never keep the first officer in the loop on what he's working on.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-700 First Officer reported that during climb; the Captain tried to press Level Change; but the Captain accidentally pressed Heading Mode Instead.

Narrative: We were on the [SID] from [the Airport]. We took off in LNAV; which I verified silently at 400 FT because the Captain doesn't make any calls or communicate in any way. Sometime between 400 FT and when we were supposed to start the turn (at 1.8 DME); the Captain tried to press Level Change but inadvertently selected HEADING mode. Since the autopilot was on; the aircraft followed runway heading and didn't make the turn. I was calling Departure and didn't notice that he had changed modes. When we realized the error; he started a turn to heading 123; but since we had started the turn fairly late; we were still off course. During the turn; we got an RA for traffic; but it was not an issue. ATC never said anything to us about the error and eventually gave us a turn to another heading.Some communication between Crew Members would have been helpful. This Captain likes to press a lot of buttons and never keep the First Officer in the loop on what he's working on.

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.

B737-700 first officer reported that during climb; the captain tried to press level change; but the captain accidentally pressed heading mode instead.