Regional Jet 700 ER/LR (CRJ700)
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument
Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Distraction
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Procedure; Chart Or Publication
On flight we originally received the flight plan route from to STL of LDN J134 FLM PXV QBALL9. Upon receiving an amended clearance of OTTTO COLNS J134 HNN the Captain and I reviewed the new route and entered it in as we saw it connected to ours. Once reaching HNN ATC cleared us direct to PXV. He informed us that the route was supposed to include FLM. He also stated that 'hundreds of crews' have made the same mistake with that route. After that incident the flight continued as planned with no further incidents.The deviation was caused by confusion between the alternate route provided by ATC on the PDC and the original flight plan filed by the company. I changed the flight plan in the FMS as we saw it connected to the original route but were mistaken with which point it connected on. The Captain and I reviewed the new flight plan and legs in the FMS and thought we had it correctly entered but during cruise flight we were told that we were off course and missed one waypoint.I believe that two things would help prevent this problem in the future. One would be a clearer description of the new route on the PDC. Center informed us that this was a consistent problem and he stated that 'hundreds of crews' have made the same mistake with that route/clearance that we received. After calling Center on the ground they informed us that they were also compiling data on the deviations in order to find a new route that could possibly prevent this. The second would have been the Captain or myself calling clearance delivery before the flight departed to clarify the route and its connecting waypoints.
Further discussion with my First Officer and ATC yielded the conclusion that when we programmed the amended clearance into the FMS; we had failed to build the continuation of J134 after HNN. This would have included just one more fix; FLM; and then PXV from there. At a glance the legs appeared the same and only a two mile difference between what was originally filed compared with the new flight plan.It is my opinion that the amended clearance could be received in a different and much less error prone way. Pulling out my charts and comparing the two clearances I can see that the only difference between the original and amended clearance is the routing before reaching J134 (the original clearance had us joining J134 at LDN as opposed to the amended clearance which had us join at COLNS.) The confusion is that the amended clearance continues to include J134; HNN as opposed to our original flight plan (on the dispatch release) which displayed J134; FLM.Had the amended clearance just displayed the part of our route that was different (RNLDI3; OTTTO; COLNS) then J134; FLM would have remained. Furthermore the amended clearance could have displayed FLM instead of HNN which would have included HNN in the legs in the FMS.Going forward I will exercise more diligence when reviewing ATC re-routes by seeking further clarification from ATC when uncertain and continued use of JEPP charts.
A flight crew misunderstood the revised PDC clearance and so entered the route incorrect before takeoff. In flight ATC detected the track deviation and stated 'hundreds of crew' makes the same mistake.