Air carrier first officer reported incurring a track heading deviation after confusing similar sound...

Narrative:

Initial filed clearance was modified from lih-V15-hnl-ebber to lih-V15-mkk-ebber taking us more south. Oceanic track was the echo track. When given the takeoff clearance we were assigned an initial heading of 080. After departure and checking in with honolulu control facility (hcf); we were given the clearance to proceed direct to eloye. With the noise in the flightdeck we thought it was oloye which was the next waypoint ahead of us on V15 (our clearance route). Hcf noticed our turn and asked us to verify we were going to eloye; not oloye. We saw the error; told hcf that yes we were going to oloye and were correcting. Hcf said that 'a number of you guys have been doing that lately.' we told him it was an easy mistake to make if you were given the echo track and that we would pass on the information about the possible confusion.[review of the reported fix names revealed the reporter may have miss-spelled them; it is highly likely the actual fixes confused were eloyi and oloyi.]

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier First Officer reported incurring a track heading deviation after confusing similar sounding fixes ELOYE and OLOYE. [Review of the reported fix names revealed the reporter may have miss-spelled them; it is highly likely the actual fixes confused were ELOYI and OLOYI.]

Narrative: Initial filed clearance was modified from LIH-V15-HNL-EBBER to LIH-V15-MKK-EBBER taking us more south. Oceanic Track was the Echo Track. When given the takeoff clearance we were assigned an initial heading of 080. After departure and checking in with Honolulu Control Facility (HCF); we were given the clearance to proceed direct to ELOYE. With the noise in the flightdeck we thought it was OLOYE which was the next waypoint ahead of us on V15 (our clearance route). HCF noticed our turn and asked us to verify we were going to ELOYE; not OLOYE. We saw the error; told HCF that yes we were going to OLOYE and were correcting. HCF said that 'a number of you guys have been doing that lately.' We told him it was an easy mistake to make if you were given the Echo Track and that we would pass on the information about the possible confusion.[Review of the reported fix names revealed the reporter may have miss-spelled them; it is highly likely the actual fixes confused were ELOYI and OLOYI.]

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.

Attributes
ACN	1735088
Time
Date	202003
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	HCF.TRACON
State Reference	HI
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 185 Flight Crew Total 2009 Flight Crew Type 2009
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

Air carrier first officer reported incurring a track heading deviation after confusing similar sounding fixes eloye and oloye. [Review of the reported fix names revealed the reporter may have miss-spelled them; it is highly likely the actual fixes confused were eloyi and oloyi.]