Widebody Transport
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Workload; Situational Awareness; Fatigue; Distraction
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Human Factors
We were given holding instructions to hold NW on the 320 radial of the BWG VOR. Setup and the initial turn was with the inbound course set to 320 (holding SE of the BWG VOR). When we realized that our clearance was to hold on the other side of BWG; we told ATC we needed to turn back to BWG and re-enter holding.We were pretty busy at this time because [of] a system malfunction. Entering a random holding pattern (and not the published database hold) is an infrequent event in our daily operations. We were also probably pretty tired at this point. We probably could have taken the time to discuss the hold among all three crew members to make sure we all agreed on the holding pattern. We may have also asked ATC for clarification if there was any confusion about the clearance.
[Report narrative contained no additional information.]
Air carrier flight crew reported entering a holding pattern on the unprotected side of the hold clearance.