EMB ERJ 170/175 ER/LR
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Confusion; Human-Machine Interface; Situational Awareness
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Human Factors
We were departing from Pittsburgh Airport. We took off on runway 28R and were assigned runway heading.Our flight plan first fix was AHTIY (then to BURGS). We briefed the route during preflight and of course verified that the course looked like it should.Shortly after takeoff; we were given a turn to the left to 'eighty' which I know from prior experience is how they pronounce that first fix; AHTIY. We brought that point up in our flight plan; inserted it into the FMS (Flight Management System) direct; agreed; then activated. The turn was a very sharp left. Once we realized we were turning toward the airport and away from our course; we briefly discussed amongst ourselves that the seemed strange. I immediately called up to verify that our clearance was a left turn direct 'eighty' (or AHTIY.) ATC (Air Traffic Control) confirmed but immediately told us to turn right to a heading of 180 'one eighty'. We started a turn to 180 but it only added to the confusion because now I thought that perhaps when I had heard 'eighty' earlier maybe I misunderstood and it was actually a heading of 'one eighty'.Once we were on that heading; we were cleared again 'direct AHTIY'. I read it back very slowly and asked to confirm that we would make a right turn direct to the fix. He said; 'Affirmative... Direct Alpha Hotel Tango India Yankee.' It was then that I realized that the point I had on my flight plan in the FMS had the T & the I switched... AHITY. I proceeded to type in the correct spelling; we agreed and flew toward AHTIY. At this point; I thought that the point AHITY actually existed over the top of Pittsburgh Airport. I found that to be a really strange placement for such a closely spelled GPS (Global Positioning System) fix to AHTIY. Upon beginning this report; I looked at my charts to verify where that fix was located. The fix doesn't seem to exist. I racked my brain to try to figure out how the fix existed in that plane but not on my chart. Then I remembered that pilots can create their own waypoints. Normally; if a fix does not exist; the FMS pulls up an option to create a pilot waypoint. I can tell you with 100% certainty but this did not happen to me when I was entering the flight plan. However; because it took my false waypoint without the prompt to create it; I can deduce that someone created that way point in that database prior to my typing it. At this point; someone must have created a misspelled version of AHTIY as AHITY. It was then that I remembered a detail that I had deemed unimportant prior to this. When we began entering the flight plan; the First Officer was holding the paperwork. He had started to enter the flight plan and then stopped. When I asked if he was doing it or if he wanted me to; he said that he decided to stop and get the ATIS (Automatic Terminal Information Service) first so I could do it. He spelled the first point for me as AHITY and I typed it. I then picked up the other copy of the flight plan and told him I would use that for the routing if he wanted to get the ATIS. I continued with BURGS and so on. I wanted to confirm my suspicions about this waypoint so I looked up the crew for the outbound flight on that aircraft. The First Officer happens to be a friend of mine. I called her and I asked her to pull up the pilot created waypoint list. She did; and sure enough there was a fix called AHITY. I had her take a photo of the coordinates for that point and send it to me. I also asked her to please delete the point from the database. I spoke with my First Officer today about user created waypoints. He says he did not create AHITY. Either way; it was a point in the pilot waypoint database and thus allowed me to use it in my flight plan.An unfortunate series of events seems to have led up to us turning toward a non-existent point. Luckily there was no mention of pilot deviation or loss of separation with any aircraft; but a mistake was still made.In the future; I will make apoint to double check the spelling of all waypoints along the route myself. We did not catch it on our verbal route review because we read it as the first fix despite the 2 letters being switched. It didn't look much different. I have certainly learned a lot from this experience; and will do my best to ensure that this does not happen again to me or anyone that I fly with. The only suggestion I have is perhaps to request that the company send a reminder to the pilot group to refresh everyone about pilot created waypoints. I would emphasize that if you do create a waypoint; you should only do it if you are doing it purposefully and using the coordinates on your chart. Then; after the flight; you should delete that point so that we don't have non-existent points in our database.
EMB 175 flight crew reported brief heading deviation that resulted from a non-existent waypoint entered into the Flight Management System.