Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Chart Or Publication; Procedure
We were en route to PHX on a part 91K flight with two passengers on board. Our clearance received from clearance delivery was 'Cleared to PHX via XXXXX 1 departure Flight Plan Route.' Flight plan was entered and reviewed and all was found to be correctly entered into the FMS. Enroute we received several 'cleared direct to' changes and also some deviations due to weather. Shortly after passing NAVHO intersection on J11; which was our filed route; ATC questioned if we had missed a turn on the arrival. We were confused by the question and informed them we were still on J11 to DRK and then joining the MAIER 5 arrival from Drake. He said he showed us on the MAIER 5 arrival already and we should have been heading toward PANTD intersection and descending accordingly. We informed him we were cleared as filed originally which was J11 to DRK and then the arrival. He thought we were joining the arrival at CORKR. After landing and clearing customs I was reviewing the En Route chart for J11 and the plate for the MAIER 5 arrival I noted that several intersections are on both the arrival for PHX and J11. I think a previous controller must have cleared us direct one of these intersections with the intent that we join the arrival from there. In our minds we thought our original route was unchanged and went direct to the intersection and continued on the airway instead. Either we misunderstood the change of which transition we were to use for the arrival; or the controller assumed we were to join the arrival from the new fix we were cleared direct to. I am not completely sure what caused the misunderstanding. The resolution ended up being the controller cleared us direct to BRUSR further down the arrival and to resume the arrival from there. We tried to discuss it further with the controller but he didn't seem to want to. Nothing more was said regarding the event.I don't recall hearing the controller specifically state to join 'such and such transition' with any of our re-routes. I feel either the controller or we as a crew assumed the wrong instruction and assignment which resulted in an apparent deviation from the expected routing. It is confusing utilizing the same intersection names for the arrival as the names on the airway. One could easily assume they are still on the airway while the controller is assuming you are on the arrival already. The main problem in this instance was communication of what transition ATC wanted us on. I did not look at the CORKR transition for the MAIER 5 arrival because we were not assigned it. Because of this I didn't realize the airway and arrival shared several waypoints that could become confusing.
The confusion seems to be that they added the point CORKR in the mix; and we thought we'd resume the arrival via DRK after that; and they thought we'd finish the same arrival from just CORKR. So when we didn't make an anticipated turn after CORKR; they queried us and we mentioned DRK was next; they just gave us a turn further downstream to BRUSR.
A flight crew filed J11 to DRK then transition to the PHX MAIER 5; but ATC assumed the crew transitioned at CORKR because that waypoint is designated CORKR.MAIER with waypoints common to both J11 and the MAIER beyond CORKR.