A319
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250; Flight Crew Total 15000; Flight Crew Type 3000
Human-Machine Interface
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors
Our clearance was to fly direct to DBABE and then intercept the HYPER arrival to IAD. Shortly after passing DBABE we were cleared directly to LRP. When I went to initiate DIRECT to LRP in the FMGC I noticed LRP was not in the list of waypoints available in the flight plan. To me that meant one of two things happened. Either there had been a dropping of waypoints by the FMGC for some reason or there had been an error in programming that neither of us had caught on the ground. After reviewing further; I noticed that we had no waypoints on the HYPER arrival from DBABE to HYPER. It appears that when the Captain programmed the FMGC he may have just put in the HYPER arrival without a transition. The gotcha is that DBABE is in the middle of the arrival and the remainder of the arrival needs to be entered as part of either of two transitions on the arrival or manually. We don't appear to have used either. It looks like we just took the preloaded flight plan and put in the proper departure and arrival; but because DBABE is in the middle of the arrival; we were missing arrival waypoints because of a failure on both of our parts to recognize this error. It seems that we may not have actually been off course though thanks to the direct LRP given by the Controller. We were not advised of any deviations. I guess we were just lucky! This flight was the final leg of 3 for the day and the final leg of a 4 day trip. Both the Captain and I stepped off the airplane to get food with about an hour on the ground. We were provided a breakfast on our first flight but had not eaten for about 7 hours. We were not rushed to get the airplane out; but of course on the last leg on the last day; you are ready to get home. The Captain had just become a line holder and he stated this trip was his first in about a month and a half. I had been flying 80 to 90 hours per month. The Captain programmed the FMGC and I checked it after the walk-around. I do not recall checking each point of the arrival on the ground; instead I checked that the departure and arrival had been entered. This is a quick 1 hour flight; so everything should be checked on the ground. I have flown this route many; many times and have never missed this. There are numerous factors involved here; reliance on automation; Captain not flying much; First Officer flying a lot and very familiar; last day of a 4 day trip; XA:42 scheduled flight time and 3 legs on last day.
A319 First Officer describes a possible track deviation due to not loading the arrival transition and the factors that lead up to the omission.