Narrative:

When passenger door latch message came on; I said: 'you have the radios; I'll do the checklist' or similar words. I got the book out and looked up passenger door latch abnormal. I'm not sure what distracted me; but something did; right about then. When I looked back at the checklist I focused on the 'phase III or phase iv' question and didn't realize I had switched pages. I completed the passenger door handle out checklist and it called for a divert so we did. I discovered my mistake while talking to maintenance after landing. This did happen at night and after an eventful day; but I didn't feel tired. We had gotten to our previous departure airport on schedule; we had over three hours on the ground scheduled; and I was planning to eat there; as were the other crewmembers. Just as I left the gate; crew scheduling called me and told me we were to change airplanes and take a different flight to an unscheduled destination. Further investigation showed the plane to have been in maintenance for some time; and the 30 or so passengers had been waiting for something like six hours because other flights were full. I told our gate agent I would need to get back to the airplane and get my stuff out and she said 'I won't be able to let you out if you aren't the scheduled crew anymore.' to cut a long story short; it took until about two hours to get the crew and our stuff together on the other airplane and start boarding. I think the first officer was primed to expect a divert because he said something like 'yep; I've done that before'; and I think that experience made him less likely to question me. I didn't really feel like the scheduling issues had affected me. I felt fine; but I suspect part of the reason was caffeine from the four diet cokes or so I had consumed. I am not sure why I fell into the wrong checklist. And I wish I knew what to do to prevent this from happening again. My only suggestion at present is that part of the procedure should be to show the procedure he/she is about to execute to the other pilot before starting it.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A CRJ50 EICAS alerted PAX DOOR LATCH but the crew erroneously completed the PAX DOOR HANDLE OUT checklist which required that they divert to the nearest airport. Maintenance MEL'ed the door warning system as faulty.

Narrative: When PAX DOOR LATCH message came on; I said: 'You have the radios; I'll do the checklist' or similar words. I got the book out and looked up PAX DOOR LATCH abnormal. I'm not sure what distracted me; but something did; right about then. When I looked back at the Checklist I focused on the 'Phase III or Phase IV' question and didn't realize I had switched pages. I completed the PAX DOOR HANDLE OUT checklist and it called for a divert so we did. I discovered my mistake while talking to Maintenance after landing. This did happen at night and after an eventful day; but I didn't feel tired. We had gotten to our previous departure airport on schedule; we had over three hours on the ground scheduled; and I was planning to eat there; as were the other crewmembers. Just as I left the gate; Crew Scheduling called me and told me we were to change airplanes and take a different flight to an unscheduled destination. Further investigation showed the plane to have been in maintenance for some time; and the 30 or so passengers had been waiting for something like six hours because other flights were full. I told our gate agent I would need to get back to the airplane and get my stuff out and she said 'I won't be able to let you out if you aren't the scheduled crew anymore.' To cut a long story short; it took until about two hours to get the crew and our stuff together on the other airplane and start boarding. I think the First Officer was primed to expect a divert because he said something like 'yep; I've done that before'; and I think that experience made him less likely to question me. I didn't really feel like the scheduling issues had affected me. I felt fine; but I suspect part of the reason was caffeine from the four Diet Cokes or so I had consumed. I am not sure why I fell into the wrong checklist. And I wish I knew what to do to prevent this from happening again. My only suggestion at present is that part of the procedure should be to show the procedure he/she is about to execute to the other pilot before starting it.

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.