EMB ERJ 145 ER/LR
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Distraction
Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Inflight Event / Encounter Wake Vortex Encounter
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors; Procedure
We were given an intercept heading of 310 to join final for a visual approach to runway 27L. We had been experiencing some wake turbulence; and at the same time my FO said localizer alive; we got more wake turbulence. I was distracted by trying to see what type of aircraft we were following when I realized I was about to go through final; so I turned on final immediately and I overshot a little; just a few degrees. After the turn and centered on localizer; I recall a traffic alert; but wasn't sure if it was on other final. The controller did not indicate an issue and we landed safely. Concentrate on joining localizer regardless of visual or not.
The captain was distracted by the wake turbulence event and was not paying close enough attention as to how fast the localizer was coming into center. While looking for traffic in busy airspace that we are following I should do a better job of scanning outside visually and inside to verify we are staying on course while still remaining on the lookout for other traffic.
EMB-145 flight crew reported flying through the localizer on approach to ORD when he was distracted by wake turbulence.