Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Workload
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Company Policy; Human Factors; Procedure
We had taken off before dawn IMC in stormy conditions and had been getting vectors from ATC to avoid heavier weather for approximately the first 20 minutes of the flight. After flying the arrival into DTW in VMC conditions we were given vectors to join the Y localizer for Runway 22R. After being given the vector to join; DTW approach gave us at least three different vectors that turned us approximately 180 degrees away from the runway. Each vector was also given a slower speed and lower altitude. We had a very high workload. There was another [company] flight ahead of us with a similar call sign that took our call at one point and then approach also got confused and misread our call sign with an instruction meant for our flight. After approach got us turned back around and cleared us for the approach; we failed to switch over to green needles to track the actual localizer frequency instead of the 22R localizer in our FMS. We were VMC and shot the approach in white needles which brought us left of course for the currently offset localizer to 22R.There were several factors. Initially the weather was poor. Winds were gusting to 27 knots with low overcast and precipitation. During the departure there was turbulence; moderate precipitation with ATC giving us vectors to get around the heavier parts of the weather. Much of our focus initially was on navigating around the weather safely. This was also a relatively short flight with a high work load. Once we had completed the arrival and were given vectors to join the localizer there must have been an issue with spacing because we were given multiple additional vectors from approach that turned us 180 degrees back around away from the airport. These vectors also had altitude and speed changes. We were VMC and once we got turned back around towards the airport we stayed in white needles. I believe that if we had been IMC that we would have switched over to green needles and properly tracked the localizer. There was another [company] flight with a similar call sign that took one of our ATC calls and then ATC misread our call sign causing additional confusion. This was also the next to last leg of a four day trip and although we were fit to fly; I will say that I personally was not as sharp as I was on the first day of the trip. We had show times of about 5:00 am each day except the first day of the trip which adds up.As the pilot monitoring I should have recognized the error and informed the Captain. We have been given bulletins about this situation at DTW and I have flown into DTW several times this month; I should have caught our mistake. There was so much going on that we just missed it. It doesn't help that we cannot select the Y Localizer approach for 22R at DTW into our FMS. We have to manually build in all the fixes to do this and there was simply not enough time with everything going on during this particular flight to accomplish that. I think that in this situation in particular; having an obviously different call sign from our sister flight would have prevented confusion for everyone involved and would also have added an additional layer of safety.
We departed IMC and were avoiding weather for the first 15-20 minutes of the flight. We started the arrival into DTW in VMC. The ATIS was reporting visual approaches to 22L and 22R and to use the Y LOC frequency 111.75 for 22R. I programmed the ILS 22R into the FMS and put 111.75 into the back up frequency. We were following another [company] flight with a similar sounding call sign into DTW at the same time. We were given an initial heading to join the ILS Y localizer but then approach changed their mind and starting issuing different headings; altitudes; and speeds to put us behind someone else. A few of our calls were mistakenly taken by the other [company] flight and some wrong instructions were given to each of us. Once we were lined back up and given a heading to join the ILS Y localizer we had the airport in sight and told approach we had a visual. I failed to switch to green needles and was watching the approach course for the straight in 22R. Just after we called the visual; approach control told us we were left of course and at that time we got a visual on another aircraft that was lined up for 22L. I turned off the autopilot at that time and corrected to the right and got reestablished for the visual approach to 22R. We landed with no further incidents.The root cause was programming the wrong approach. Contributing factors were confusing instructions and task saturation. Suggestions for avoidance in the future would be a more thorough approach briefing. Especially in the situation of an abnormal procedure such as the ILS Y and the ILS in the FMS not being the same approach. Also to avoid the use of similar sounding call signs in the same airspace.
CRJ900 flight crew is instructed to fly the LOC Y to Runway 22R at DTW which is not part of their FMC database. The ILS 22R is selected for a backup then the crew forgets to switch to green needles when cleared for the approach due to multiple vectors for spacing. ATC catches the error.