An emb-140 captain reported encountering wake turbulence at FL360 that rolled the aircraft enough to...

Narrative:

Upon reaching FL360 we immediately encountered wake turbulence from a heavy jet ahead of us at our altitude. The aircraft abruptly rolled into a steep bank to the right and the autopilot disconnected. I do not know to what extent the aircraft rolled but we got an aural bank angle warning. The first officer was the pilot flying and applied left aileron to recover. There was a minimal loss of altitude during the roll and recovery. We reported the wake turbulence to ATC and asked for a different altitude. He turned us off the airway instead. I asked him what the spacing was between us and the heavy jet; and he said about five miles. After landing I consulted the chief pilot's office; maintenance control and dispatch. I made an MEL entry describing the encounter. Maintenance determined that a severe turbulence inspection was not required. The controller said we had the proper spacing so I don't know why it happened. The first officer was the pilot flying; and did an excellent job of recovering from the roll; without over controlling or excessive manipulation of the controls. I think the accuracy of the FMS/GPS can at times be detrimental to safety. Having all aircraft track dead center on the airways is not always a good thing. In this case it wasn't.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An EMB-140 Captain reported encountering wake turbulence at FL360 that rolled the aircraft enough to trigger the aural bank warning.

Narrative: Upon reaching FL360 we immediately encountered wake turbulence from a heavy jet ahead of us at our altitude. The aircraft abruptly rolled into a steep bank to the right and the autopilot disconnected. I do not know to what extent the aircraft rolled but we got an aural bank angle warning. The First Officer was the pilot flying and applied left aileron to recover. There was a minimal loss of altitude during the roll and recovery. We reported the wake turbulence to ATC and asked for a different altitude. He turned us off the airway instead. I asked him what the spacing was between us and the heavy jet; and he said about five miles. After landing I consulted the chief pilot's office; Maintenance Control and Dispatch. I made an MEL entry describing the encounter. Maintenance determined that a severe turbulence inspection was not required. The controller said we had the proper spacing so I don't know why it happened. The First Officer was the pilot flying; and did an excellent job of recovering from the roll; without over controlling or excessive manipulation of the controls. I think the accuracy of the FMS/GPS can at times be detrimental to safety. Having all aircraft track dead center on the airways is not always a good thing. In this case it wasn't.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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	837038
Time
Date	200905
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	EMB ERJ 140 ER&LR
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Not Flying Captain
Person 2
Function	Pilot Flying First Officer
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter

An emb-140 captain reported encountering wake turbulence at FL360 that rolled the aircraft enough to trigger the aural bank warning.