A communications breakdown between ATC and the flight crew of a learjet climbing to cruise altitude ...

Attributes
ACN	920088
Time
Date	201011
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZTL.ARTCC
State Reference	GA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Learjet 55
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 135
Flight Phase	Climb
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 65 Flight Crew Total 2100 Flight Crew Type 1100
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Conflict Airborne Conflict Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types
Miss Distance	Vertical 400

Narrative:

We were in a normal VMC climb to FL340. Climbing through FL300 ATC issued a heading deviation of 10 degrees and a further climb clearance to FL400. We both thought we had heard 'turn left one zero degrees; vectors for climb' clearance and turned the airplane 10 degrees to the left. A few minutes later; ATC queried the crew if they had turned to the left or to the right.at that same time TCAS issued an RA and a descent command. The crew began an immediate descent; simultaneously with another ATC clearance to descend back to FL340. TCAS showed the traffic conflict at 400 ft above flying in the opposite direction. We had visual contact with the conflicting traffic throughout the event and at no time felt that a collision was imminent. Neither the crew nor the controller could definitively remember which direction was issued. We don't know the horizontal distance between us and the conflicting traffic.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A communications breakdown between ATC and the flight crew of a Learjet climbing to cruise altitude resulted in a traffic conflict with an aircraft around which they believed they had been vectored.

Narrative: We were in a normal VMC climb to FL340. Climbing through FL300 ATC issued a heading deviation of 10 degrees and a further climb clearance to FL400. We both thought we had heard 'turn left one zero degrees; vectors for climb' clearance and turned the airplane 10 degrees to the left. A few minutes later; ATC queried the crew if they had turned to the left or to the right.At that same time TCAS issued an RA and a descent command. The crew began an immediate descent; simultaneously with another ATC clearance to descend back to FL340. TCAS showed the traffic conflict at 400 FT above flying in the opposite direction. We had visual contact with the conflicting traffic throughout the event and at no time felt that a collision was imminent. Neither the crew nor the Controller could definitively remember which direction was issued. We don't know the horizontal distance between us and the conflicting traffic.

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.

A communications breakdown between ATC and the flight crew of a learjet climbing to cruise altitude resulted in a traffic conflict with an aircraft around which they believed they had been vectored.