Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 200; Flight Crew Total 3700; Flight Crew Type 2000
Human-Machine Interface; Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Altitude Overshoot; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew FLC Overrode Automation
Aircraft; Chart Or Publication; Human Factors
The Captain was the flying pilot. The Captain on this flight had filed the flight plan earlier that morning. After we completed our preflight preparations I checked Fltplan.com to double check our route for the flight. The route was: PHL-OOD-TEBEE-SBY-ZZZ1. After briefly discussing the ATIS we called clearance delivery. Our clearance was 'cleared to ZZZ1 via direct OOD HAYDO TEBEE SBY ZZZ1. CLIMB 5000 EXPECT 280/10 Minutes; Departure on 119.75; Squawk XXXX'. I think it was after the read back we were informed that we were number 35 for departure. The Captain entered the routing into the FMS as I monitored and assisted. We then called Ground for taxi. During the next hour we were directed to taxi to various locations on the airport. It was during this hour we learned some of the delay was due to the weather in the Washington DC area. It was also during this time that our routing was changed to take us west of the Washington DC area. We were instructed to switch back to Clearance Delivery to get this new route. We received this new route/clearance and the Captain then entered it into the FMS. I am unsure of how much time past after returning to Ground frequency that we were instructed to return to Clearance Delivery for yet another change to our routing. This time it was back to our original route. It was a little over an hour since engine start; with some difficult taxi instructions; getting switched back to Clearance Delivery two times; that we were finally number 1 for takeoff. The Tower Controller gave us our takeoff clearance with a heading to fly. The autopilot was engaged and all was going normally. We switched Departure frequencies a few times during the climb and was given direct to our first fix. We were given several climb instructions during the climb and departure phase. Shortly before reaching HAYDO we were given another climb from; I believe from 16;000 feet to 17;000 feet. The autopilot was still engaged and the new altitude selected and the climb was initiated. During the climb; the aircraft reached HAYDO intersection but started a turn back to TEBEE intersection; a 180 degree turn as TEBEE was behind us. The Captain quickly disengaged the autopilot. Since the autopilot had the aircraft trimmed for the climb the Captain was unable to get the climb stopped while trying to get back on the correct heading. When he realized the altitude error; significant control inputs were used to get to our assigned altitude. I think we deviated from our assigned altitude by 800 feet; possibly more. ATC also called the altitude deviation to our attention during this event and we corrected as quickly as possible. It was a very busy morning and all the controllers and flight crews seemed to be doing their best to keep traffic moving. Yet somehow we ended up with these two fixes reversed in our routing. I still have the paper that I copied and read back the clearance on. My normal procedures is to also put this routing on the map on my iPad; which I did; but since these fixes are so nearly aligned on our route you must look very closely to notice that they are not entered in the correct order. Looking back on this event the number one thing would be not to disengage the autopilot when you are within a few seconds of leveling off at an assigned altitude; had we simply went to heading mode on the autopilot it would have captured the altitude and leveled off and we could then correct the turn in heading mode.
A Corporate jet pilot reported two fixes in their FMS were reversed causing them to fly off course and then exceed the assigned altitude while trying to fix their course deviation.