B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 199
Human-Machine Interface; Communication Breakdown
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Procedure; Human Factors; Airspace Structure
On the EMZOH 1 RNAV into OAK we were cleared for the ILS 30 Approach via the MYAKL Transition. The Captain (pilot flying) correctly brought up the approach to the ILS 30 into the MCDU with the MYAKL Transition. By the time he had completed the action; we were past MYAKL with the LNAV DISCON annunciated and the aircraft had begun a 90 degree left turn to a 180 heading.The Captain immediately corrected the turn just as ATC queried our action. ATC gave us a heading to join the localizer and we continued with a standard ILS approach with an uneventful arrival and landing. ATC then stated that it was the third navigation 'event' by an aircraft in recent operations. The supporting text on the approach plate states: 'EXPECT assigned approach procedure'; thus we had not joined the ILS with the STAR in the MCDU prior to this time.ATC needs to give the approach clearance much earlier for the aircraft to stay on the charted arrival. The MYAKL Transition needs to be either tied in to the arrival or it needs to be given in the clearance much earlier for the aircraft to be able to comply.
As we got an LNAV disconnect; I entered it into the FMC; but it came up with points all the way back to MIARM which is a branch point in the arrival. As I tried to clean it up I initially put the wrong point on top which caused the aircraft to turn off course. I was turning back on course when ATC gave us a vector to intercept the approach. There was no loss of separation. This is a similar problem as to what is happening on the HAWKZ arrival in SEA. The Controller said that we were the third aircraft this had happened to in the last couple of days. Because of this; I talked to both the Chief Pilot on call and NorCal on the phone about the problem. I also discussed with the First Officer what we could have done differently.This is a brand new arrival; and the depiction was confusing (at least to me) as I was expecting a vector. We should have queried the Controller about what to expect. Even if I had realized that we would get the transition; our procedure would be to not close the discontinuity until cleared for the approach. The clearance came very late; and didn't allow us sufficient time to clean up the route. At this point we should have just requested a vector rather than trying to fix the problem at the last minute.
B737 flight crew reached the end of the EMZOH RNAV Arrival having just received further clearance for an instrument approach. Crew was programming the FMC for the cleared approach procedure as the aircraft arrived at the end of the RNAV approach. Erroneous programming by the crew resulted in a turn not cleared by ATC.