A319
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Confusion
Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event Other / Unknown
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors; Weather
Prior to top of descent I briefed the 1st crossing of descent and approach; landing; taxi; and all items on the back of the checklist. 30 miles southwest of CLT; ATC turned us eastbound for the base turn on the ILS 36L. The FO asked to clean up the flight plan (clear arrival fix and sequence the approach fixes in the FMGC) I agreed. My attention was on converging traffic I could see at 2 o'clock on final for 36C or 36R; we were between cloud layers. ATC then cleared us to turn left. 030; 5;000 until LONIA and cleared ILS approach Runway 36L. We were 25nm out I set the heading to 030 and selected LOC; then I asked the FO where the traffic went. ATC then called to tell us we appeared to be going thru the 36L LOC. The FO and I noticed that we had not intercepted yet and responded back what we showed. ATC responded; turn left immediately to re-intercept LOC 36L. I then saw airbus traffic directly overhead.The FO realized we had ILS 36R in the FMGC; he quickly inserted the ILS 36L; and then reestablished on the 36L LOC. We did not receive a TCAS traffic alert or resolution. The approach controller responded that it was not a problem.After debriefing the event following the flight; we discovered the FO had altered the secondary flight plan on the downwind leg of the approach. Before departure I had loaded the ILS 18R and I copied the primary flight plan to the secondary flight plan.Later enroute the ILS 36L was loaded into the primary flight plan due to a wind change in CLT. The ILS 36L was briefed during our approach briefing. I suppose to save time on the downwind leg the FO made changes to the secondary flight plan removing the arrival to re-sequence the extra fixes on the long approach; but he changed the runway from 18R to 36R. Then during the base to final leg to clean up the flight plan the FO activated the secondary flight plan since I was on a heading. My attention was accessing the risk of converging traffic at 2 o'clock; though he seemed to be above us. During the time when the unnoticed error occurred we were in a high workload/task saturated period.I had planned to add the extra fixes for the approach during the downwind since they were crossing LONIA at 5;000 for 36L; but I saw the FO busy in the secondary removing the arrival and what I thought was making the necessarily changes. It seemed a bit unusual to use the secondary flight plan for the modification; but thought I might learn something. I did not pay enough attention to detail and noticed his confident fingers were a bit of a blur. I thought I would just let him do the busy work. He had been an excellent FO and very sharp; and hardworking! That's how I believed it happened.I think sometimes we short cut our flight plan verification when we use the secondary flight plan or think it is okay to use the secondary flight plan - single pilot.1. We should never activate the secondary flight plan during a high task loaded situation2. When a flight plan is cleaned up the pilot flying needs to verify that it is correct!
Prior to beginning our descent into CLT; the ATIS was reporting 18R as the active runway; so that runway was entered into the FMS and briefed by the Captain. As we got closer to CLT; we were cleared to descend via the FILPZ1 arrival; landing north; as the winds had shifted and they were now using 36L as the active runway. The Captain entered the new runway into the FMS and we both verified the arrival and approach again to confirm that it was correctly entered as well as briefed any changes. As we continued the arrival; somewhere between CEDOX and DOSBE intersection; I noticed that CLT approach was giving instructions to clear other aircraft for the ILS 36L to cross LONIA intersection at or above 5;000 feet. LONIA was not loaded into the FMS at the time since the Airbus FMS doesn't automatically add all the waypoints of an ILS when there is a STAR loaded along with the approach. Since CLT was using about a 25 mile final for the runway at the time; I thought it would be a good idea to have the whole ILS loaded into the FMS to reduce our workload when turning onto final.I decided to load the ILS into the secondary flight plan without the STAR so that once cleared to a heading to join; we could just activate the secondary and have all of the waypoints loaded when we needed them. As I was entering this into the box; ATC called us and issued several instructions including a turn to 090 heading; which I read back. In my distraction; I accidentally selected 36R instead of 36L in the secondary flight plan. ATC had turned us in fairly tight and as I was activating the secondary; we got an instruction to turn to a 030 heading to join the LOC; cross LONIA at 5;000; clear for the ILS 36L. As we were busy at this moment; we never got around to verifying the correct runway was loaded into the box until ATC called and informed us that we were crossing the localizer. At first we were confused as we were showing left of course on our instruments. We acquired the runway in sight at this time and saw that we were indeed right of course. We were given a heading to reintercept; I immediately realized my mistake and reloaded the correct runway in the FMS; which we both verified. We rejoined the localizer and continued the approach without incident. There was never a loss of separation with other aircraft.There are a couple causes that led to this event. The main cause was a combination of a high workload during the approach phase as well as the distraction of trying to do too much at once with entering the new runway into the box while communicating with ATC. Also; our failure to verify that the approach was correctly entered into the secondary flight plan was a major cause. Minor causes were complacency from being familiar with CLT that I didn't double check my inputs enough as well as I might have been subconsciously thinking right side runway as our brief was originally for 18 right. In the future; instead of loading a new approach into the secondary; I will manually enter the required points into the active flight plan. That will eliminate the possibility of selecting the wrong runway accidently. Also; and more importantly; I will put more emphasis on CRM so that anything entered into the FMS will be verified to be correct before hitting activate.
A319 flight crew described the circumstances leading up to entering ILS 36R into the FMGC instead of the correct ILS 36L. This resulted in the crew overshooting the 36L localizer and a call from ATC to turn left to intercept.