Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Workload; Training / Qualification; Situational Awareness; Confusion; Distraction
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Airport; Procedure; Human Factors
We were on the FO's second flight of Initial Operations Experience (IOE) and first as PF so my workload was very high. The descent check did not get completed in a timely manner so when the FO briefed the visual approach that was to be backed up with the ILS Y 22R approach; neither of us noticed that there was an offset localizer of 2.5 degrees. As we got closer to the airport; we remarked to ATC that we weren't getting the localizer because the blue preview needles had yet to appear. He said a previous aircraft had reported the same and asked if we had the airport in sight.  When we replied yes; we were cleared for the visual; but shortly thereafter; ATC inquired to make sure that we were lining up for 22R and not 22L. I sensed that something was going wrong with our navigation so I took control of the aircraft began turning back to intercept the final approach course. At about the same time; ATC issued us a vector to rejoin the localizer. At that time we had switched to green needles and I asked the FO for the inbound course setting because we still weren't getting preview needles. When we set it and I lined up for the runway; the localizer still showed up way off and I asked ATC about it and that's when they informed me of the offset. I'm not sure if the initial clearance was simply 'cleared for the visual' or whether we had been told to join the localizer.I believe the root cause to be the omission of the offset localizer in our brief. A major contributing factor was having a student on one of his first legs as PF and the confusion caused by many things happening at once.We were given a number to call the TRACON and the person who I spoke to was very nice and was hoping to gain some insight as to how to avoid this in the future. I explained to him about our procedure with white/blue needles and green needles which cleared up something he had been told by another pilot regarding the same issue and why we were saying that we weren't receiving the localizer. I suggested that maybe a note be added to the ATIS when the ILS Y 22R was in use reminding pilots that it is an offset localizer which a couple hours later they did. I also said that if we were going to be cleared for the visual that maybe they should be specific about following the offset localizer until a certain distance from the runway. I suggested to our dispatch that maybe flights into DTW could have a reference to the [flight information] in the remarks section.
CRJ-200 Captain reported a track deviation inbound to DTW when they failed to note the offset localizer in use on the ILS Y 22R.