Narrative:

This was our third day of three-day trip. The first day we flew all -300s; the second day we flew all -500s; and today we were to fly a -700 all day. We discussed how nice it was going to be to have the 'full up' -700.everything was normal during takeoff and cleanup. Shortly after we checked in; departure said to turn right; proceed direct [waypoint X] and climb to 14;000' due to traffic. At this time; my first officer was in the heading mode and manually flying the aircraft so I brought [waypoint X] to the top of the FMC; had him verify it; executed it; and selected LNAV. Then I selected 14;000??? And he verified it.we were in the weather at this time; so I looked at my map display to see if there were any potential traffic conflicts. About this time; I heard my first officer say autopilot is on and we broke out through the clouds in a right turn. I looked around for any aircraft; didn't see any; and then noticed we were turning toward the mountains north of ont. We were still climbing at 210 KIAS and passing about 8000'. I remember thinking it was a good thing we had such a good climb rate (with the mountains at our 12 o'clock) when my first officer said he didn't have a flight director.I looked inside at my display and saw we were turning through about 020 heading. [Waypoint X] was back to the left at about a 290-degree heading (I expected about a 340 heading). I told him to turn back to the left and immediately called departure to report we had turned past [waypoint X] and were correcting back. Naturally that call got stepped on; and his call to us got stepped on; but we finally communicated that we turned past [waypoint X] and were correcting back.about this time; my first officer said he didn't see [waypoint X] and he wasn't sure where we were headed. I looked at my display again and he had turned past [waypoint X] to the left. We got him turning back to [waypoint X] and I noticed that his display didn't have a magenta line. About this time; we both realized the autopilot wasn't connected and he never disconnected it. He selected the B autopilot; but it didn't engage. I selected the a autopilot and it engaged.we were trying to figure out what was going on with the displays and autopilot when I noticed he was in appr not the map display. (He had gone to appr when checking the VOR during the pre takeoff checks and left it there.) after we got an autopilot engaged; got his map display up and verified everything worked fine. We later selected the B autopilot. It engaged and worked fine the rest of the flight.as we have all heard a hundred times or more; both pilots need to observe any MCP changes and then make sure the scoreboard on the display shows the proper mode. I got distracted by the traffic call and then looking at the mountain at our 12 o'clock position. My first officer was probably doing the same thing and didn't notice the autopilot hadn't engaged. I'm sure he then got distracted by the fact he couldn't see [waypoint X] on his nd. No excuses; but that's what happened. I will try to be extra vigilant in the future.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737-700 flight crew suffered a track deviation when the PF left his ND in the APPR mode rather than MAP and thus had no active route display to follow.

Narrative: This was our third day of three-day trip. The first day we flew all -300s; the second day we flew all -500s; and today we were to fly a -700 all day. We discussed how nice it was going to be to have the 'full up' -700.Everything was normal during takeoff and cleanup. Shortly after we checked in; Departure said to turn right; proceed direct [WAYPOINT X] and climb to 14;000' due to traffic. At this time; my First Officer was in the Heading mode and manually flying the aircraft so I brought [WAYPOINT X] to the top of the FMC; had him verify it; executed it; and selected LNAV. Then I selected 14;000??? and he verified it.We were in the weather at this time; so I looked at my map display to see if there were any potential traffic conflicts. About this time; I heard my F/O say autopilot is on and we broke out through the clouds in a right turn. I looked around for any aircraft; didn't see any; and then noticed we were turning toward the mountains north of ONT. We were still climbing at 210 KIAS and passing about 8000'. I remember thinking it was a good thing we had such a good climb rate (with the mountains at our 12 o'clock) when my First Officer said he didn't have a flight director.I looked inside at my display and saw we were turning through about 020 heading. [WAYPOINT X] was back to the left at about a 290-degree heading (I expected about a 340 heading). I told him to turn back to the left and immediately called Departure to report we had turned past [WAYPOINT X] and were correcting back. Naturally that call got stepped on; and his call to us got stepped on; but we finally communicated that we turned past [WAYPOINT X] and were correcting back.About this time; my First Officer said he didn't see [WAYPOINT X] and he wasn't sure where we were headed. I looked at my display again and he had turned past [WAYPOINT X] to the left. We got him turning back to [WAYPOINT X] and I noticed that his display didn't have a magenta line. About this time; we both realized the autopilot wasn't connected and he never disconnected it. He selected the B autopilot; but it didn't engage. I selected the A autopilot and it engaged.We were trying to figure out what was going on with the displays and autopilot when I noticed he was in APPR not the MAP display. (He had gone to APPR when checking the VOR during the pre takeoff checks and left it there.) After we got an autopilot engaged; got his MAP display up and verified everything worked fine. We later selected the B autopilot. It engaged and worked fine the rest of the flight.As we have all heard a hundred times or more; both Pilots need to observe any MCP changes and then make sure the scoreboard on the display shows the proper mode. I got distracted by the traffic call and then looking at the mountain at our 12 o'clock position. My F/O was probably doing the same thing and didn't notice the autopilot hadn't engaged. I'm sure he then got distracted by the fact he couldn't see [WAYPOINT X] on his ND. No excuses; but that's what happened. I will try to be extra vigilant in the future.

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.