Narrative:

Captain (ca) entered flight plan in FMS after receiving clearance. First officer (first officer) verified flight plan in FMS while ca was dealing with a passenger that was unhappy about having to check their luggage. The waypoint 'heaven' was in the flight plan and there are two waypoints with that name and different spelling hevan and heven. Our flight plan included hevan; but it was entered as heven and neither ca nor first officer noticed the error. Because we were leaving gso; the 'heaven' waypoints were relatively the same distance; and we had excess fuel because of weather in ZZZ. Therefore the strange fuel balance and other things that would normally make the error obvious were not present in this flight plan. We were by psk at approximately FL180 when we were given the shortcut 'direct heaven' by atlanta center. We used the FMS to turn direct heven; which was approximately a 030 degree heading; and a right turn from where we were located at the time. After about three minutes; the ca noticed that the flight plan seemed weird; because it was not really a shortcut (because the waypoint was wrong). Not ten seconds later atlanta center contacted us and said 'are you going direct heaven? If so your heading should be approximately 310.' at that time we switched into heading mode and turned to a heading of 310. The ca realized immediately that the error was the spelling of 'heaven' in the FMS and corrected it. The ca entered hevan and we then went direct to hevan and engaged LNAV again. As first officer; I need to pay closer attention to the spelling of the waypoints. Truthfully; until this happened it had not occurred to me that there would be two so close in spelling and distance that it would create this confusion. Had we been at a different airport; it may have been obvious through distance or fuel information; but today it didn't stand out. In fact; in our debrief we discussed that even if the ca had called the waypoints while the first officer verified them (as is normally done) the spelling error would most likely still have been missed. In fact; it seems to me that when I verified the plan myself I should have been more likely to notice such an error because I was looking at the spelling on the paperwork. We both agree that if we each had paid closer attention this could have been prevented. I will definitely learn from this and watch waypoint spelling more closely in the future.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Embraer Regional Jet First Officer reported confusion with similar spelled fixes HEVEN and HAVEN resulted in a heading deviation.

Narrative: Captain (CA) entered flight plan in FMS after receiving clearance. First Officer (FO) verified flight plan in FMS while CA was dealing with a passenger that was unhappy about having to check their luggage. The waypoint 'heaven' was in the flight plan and there are two waypoints with that name and different spelling HEVAN and HEVEN. Our flight plan included HEVAN; but it was entered as HEVEN and neither CA nor FO noticed the error. Because we were leaving GSO; the 'Heaven' waypoints were relatively the same distance; and we had excess fuel because of weather in ZZZ. Therefore the strange fuel balance and other things that would normally make the error obvious were not present in this flight plan. We were by PSK at approximately FL180 when we were given the shortcut 'Direct Heaven' by Atlanta Center. We used the FMS to turn direct HEVEN; which was approximately a 030 degree heading; and a right turn from where we were located at the time. After about three minutes; the CA noticed that the flight plan seemed weird; because it was not really a shortcut (because the waypoint was wrong). Not ten seconds later Atlanta Center contacted us and said 'Are you going direct Heaven? If so your heading should be approximately 310.' At that time we switched into heading mode and turned to a heading of 310. The CA realized immediately that the error was the spelling of 'Heaven' in the FMS and corrected it. The CA entered HEVAN and we then went direct to HEVAN and engaged LNAV again. As FO; I need to pay closer attention to the spelling of the waypoints. Truthfully; until this happened it had not occurred to me that there would be two so close in spelling and distance that it would create this confusion. Had we been at a different airport; it may have been obvious through distance or fuel information; but today it didn't stand out. In fact; in our debrief we discussed that even if the CA had called the waypoints while the FO verified them (as is normally done) the spelling error would most likely still have been missed. In fact; it seems to me that when I verified the plan myself I should have been more likely to notice such an error because I was looking at the spelling on the paperwork. We both agree that if we each had paid closer attention this could have been prevented. I will definitely learn from this and watch waypoint spelling more closely in the future.

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.