Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Distraction; Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification
Environment - Non Weather Related; Procedure
[It was] a beautiful albeit very hot day. VMC descent from 13;000 to 8;000; south of LAS vectored off the KEPEC3 STAR we were just a few miles west of 0L7; Jean airport. Near CLARR; before KEPEC we were given a vector of 010. Next instruction from ATC was turn left 080; caution numerous gliders in the area (not exact verbiage). I began to turn left; perhaps 20 degrees; but as I was looking at our TCAS I indeed saw numerous (4 at least) targets at altitudes within 1;000 FT of ours. They appeared to all be climbing. I thought it a very poor idea to continue to 080 as that would put us head on with them and we were within 5 miles and closing; of them all as it was. My nearest threat I saw was on TCAS just off our left about 300 FT below us climbing into us about 2 miles away. I leveled off and turned back toward the right to 010. Next I continued our descent. We were at 11;000. We communicated this change to ATC. Next I saw visually a glider on our right that was not showing up at all on TCAS; but was quite clear out the windscreen. He was approximately 300 FT below and about 500 FT horizontally and turning hard left; to miss us I presume. I could see that we would not impact so stayed our course and descent profile so I could perhaps be a predictable target to any other gliders in the area. We continued into LAS and landed. I will guess that the glider we got close to may have seen us earlier and thought because we were turning to the east continued along his path initially. When I chose to turn away from all the traffic on my left and came back to the right where we had previously been; the non squawking glider probably made an evasive maneuver to miss us. I am quite shocked that it would be normal operating procedure to vector an aircraft into the path of known and squawking glider traffic. The vectored 080 heading and the descending clearance would have kept us in a dangerous position whereas a cautious; maybe more conservative vector north could have kept all aircraft in a much safer position. I do think that in this particular event the non squawking glider that was indeed the real threat to us was not a byproduct of anything ATC did. We were all operating legally and when in VMC; see and avoid is everyone's responsibility. However routing air traffic through known glider operations areas makes zero sense to me. Does ATC warning of numerous gliders in the area at our altitude make the consequences any less damaging? It is a terrible shame that ATC has their hands tied regarding ride-alongs. They are much needed and need to be brought back the way it was prior to 9/11. Get them in the cockpits so they can see what the reality of their instructions really are.
An A319 Captain on the LAS KEPEC3 near CLARR Intersection reported taking evasive action from a series of gliders while descending VMC from 13;000 FT to 8;000 FT. Some gliders had transponders; some not.