A321 flight crew reported a track deviation occurred departing SAN; citing a wake turbulence encounter as contributing.
Synopsis
A321 flight crew reported a track deviation occurred departing SAN; citing a wake turbulence encounter as contributing.
Narrative
Departing 27 at SAN; assigned the ZZOOO3 RNAV departure. A B737NG took off right in front of us and Tower asked us if we could maintain visual with them. We said yes and was immediately issued takeoff clearance. Departed right behind them and was hitting their wake turbulence during climb out. Green dot was 240 knots for us while the departure showed restriction of 230 knots at ZZOOO. CA (Captain) asked ATC if we could maintain 250 knots in the climb. ATC said yes. I do not really remember reaching up to adjust speed but looking back I must have pulled HDG and selected 250 rather than pulling speed. We were still in wake turbulence from the B737NG aircraft. We overshot the turn for ZZOOO by a mile or so because we were now in HDG mode. We realized this and I immediately turned off autopilot and started turning left towards ZZOOO. The CA asked ATC for vectors. We realized our mistake before ATC said anything to us. ATC cleared us direct GRIDR and told us to climb to FL230 and we complied. Last leg of a 4 day trip...Heavy aircraft with a published speed on SID well below green dot. In the future I will not accept 'maintain visual with departing aircraft' clearance at this airport....constant wake turbulence and looking out windshield to maintain visual with previous departure definitely contributed to this event.
Second reporter narrative
ATC asked if we could visually follow a B737NG after departure. We said yes and were cleared for takeoff runway 27. During the climb out we encountered wake turbulence. We cleaned up the airplane and green dot was 240KTS. ZZOOO has a MAX 230KT speed. I asked ATC for 250KT climb. ATC approved the increase to 250KTS. FO (First Officer) pulled heading and selected heading 250 by mistake. I noticed we hadn't turned left toward ZZOOO. FO disconnected the autopilot and turned left toward ZZOOO. I notified ATC that we needed radar vectors and ATC gave us a heading and altitude. ATC then asked if we could go direct to GRIDR and continue climb to FL230. We went direct GRIDER and climbed to FL230. Rest of the flight was normal. In the future I will not accept a clearance to visually follow another airplane on takeoff. Most of our takeoffs are at high gross weights which makes certain speed restrictions on departure a challenge. Do not accept a takeoff clearance to follow another aircraft visually. Delete the speed restriction at ZZOOO.
NASA callback
Reporter stated the wake encounter was a definite distractor in this event.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.