Gulfstream III (G1159A)
Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance
Human Factors; Procedure
Eclipse 500 was descending out of FL240 for 11;000 FT and on an east heading direct SDL. Just South of RSP was Gulfstream III descending on the RNAV arrival into PHX. They were route separated. Gulfstream III was originally flying on the ARLIN arrival. He was capable of the GEELA based on his equipment. To comply with LOA procedures with P90; I cleared him on the GEELA arrival. At some point; Gulfstream III started flying north off of the arrival. I noticed he was veering off course while I was on the line coordinating. I turned him 30 right as soon as possible. He got within five miles of the Eclipse jet before he was able to make the turn. The GEELA RNAV arrival starts in ZLA airspace at SCOLE Intersection. ZAB controllers are required to issue RNAV arrivals to all equipped jets per the PHX LOA. Before ERAM; the preferred routing showed up in blue in the URET and ZLA would issue the correct route. Now ZLA does not get the preferred route and many equipped jets are making it to ZAB airspace without the RNAV arrival. Because the arrival starts in ZLA they should be required to issue the correct routing before SCOLE.
We were on our descent. Our clearance was the Arlin3 to PHX. Upon reaching SCOLE Intersection; Center asked us if we could accept the Geela6 arrival. Not realizing that they did not give us anything to directly navigate to; we accepted the Geela6 RNAV arrival. We had programmed into our FMS to follow our flight plan which included our crossing restrictions and runway for landing and briefed accordingly. Now we had to reprogram this new arrival which is far more complex than the first with many step downs and speed reductions. However; the time at which the Controller gave us this new arrival our workload increased dramatically having to fly the aircraft; reprogram the FMS; check it; set up the VNAV descend on the profile; run the checklist and re brief again. This type of clearance should not have been given at this critical time of the flight. There was not enough time to prepare for it. Because of this there was a loss of situational awareness as to which way the aircraft had to go to stay on course and as a result we were off from where we needed to be. After we realized our error we took corrective action to turn back on course and flew the profile as depicted to our approach and landing on 7R at PHX. In the interest of safety; these types of arrival changes have to be made prior to descent so the new information loaded can be checked and verified before it is initiated.
ZAB Controller described a loss of separation event when PHX inbound traffic was issued an arrival procedure change resulting in a momentary track deviation.