An air carrier First Officer erroneously entered the CLT MAJIC1 arrival in the FMS; which shares common way points with the cleared SUDSY3 arrival. ATC issued a vector where upon the crew found their error and returned to the assigned routing.
Synopsis
An air carrier First Officer erroneously entered the CLT MAJIC1 arrival in the FMS; which shares common way points with the cleared SUDSY3 arrival. ATC issued a vector where upon the crew found their error and returned to the assigned routing.
Narrative
The incorrect arrival to CLT was entered into the FMS during our preflight duties. We arrived early and had a few minutes to relax then complete our preflight duties; we were unhurried. After receiving our clearance and during my release briefing I make a point of reading the clearance after having verified it. In this case we had been cleared for the Sudsy3 but the First Officer had entered the MAGIC1. The clearance was vectors to MAGIC; etc. I think we both had that in our heads (i.e. MAGIC the waypoint = MAGIC the arrival) during the review of the clearance. The two arrivals also share the same waypoints; however; the MAGIC1 terminates with vectors from GIZMO whereas the SUDSY3 has a turn towards the south and a few more waypoints essentially paralleling 36R. The crossing restriction at MAGIC is also the same. The most recent Controller had given us the crossing restriction at MAGIC; and he may have given us the MAGIC or the Sudsy arrival; I don't remember. Everything seemed normal; then ATC gave us a 160 heading which seemed odd to me. Almost simultaneously; the First Officer referenced the FMS and said he'd entered the incorrect arrival. He corrected the arrival. ATC gave us another heading and descent instructions (we were at 9000) to 6000. I observed our position referenced to the corrected arrival and we were within 2-3 miles as I recall. ATC never queried us about what arrival we were on; nor did they indicate there was any problem. The flight concluded uneventfully.I have done the preflight activities many times. The only thing I can think of is that we were tired (we were). We had a schedule that had us starting early for two days then starting and ending late the last day. I don't understand why these types of schedules seem the norm; there's no way to adapt to them. I had slept fairly well the night before but woke up early as I had the previous two days. I went back to bed and took a nap trying to get as much sleep as late as I could. Despite this we still missed an obvious mistake. The most disturbing part is I didn't feel that I was overly tired or unfit to fly (ie 'fatigued'). While this particular event is not particularly alarming; I think in the bigger picture the airline needs to really think about the choices it's making about the consideration of human factors versus economics and the consequences if they don't choose correctly.
Second reporter narrative
The clearance that I received was direct to MAJIC intersection and the SUDSY3 arrival. Unfortunately I entered the MAJIC1 arrival into the FMS. Both arrivals share the same waypoints (MAJIC; SUDSY; GIZMO). When I confirmed these on my charts I saw those waypoints and felt like everything was entered correctly. Once we were on the arrival and we were a few miles past GIZMO ATC gave us a heading of 160. This made me curious and I then double checked which arrival we had in the FMS. Seeing that it was the wrong one I then selected the SUDSY3 and noticed we had flown a bit past AMOBE. This was probably why we were given the vector. ATC continued to give us vectors to the visual approach to 36R and nothing was mentioned of it. I believe the biggest contribution to this event was being tired. The trip that we were on was a three day that began with very early check in on the first two days then a late check in on the third. The time of my unintentional entry into the FMS was at the same time that I had gone to bed the last two nights. Requiring crews to change their internal clocks and sleep patterns within the confines of a three day period cannot be considered safe.I would suggest the reduction of arrivals having the same fixes and shared names. I would also suggest the building of pairings that keep crews on the same sleep patterns. Schedules that have all late shows/finishes or all early shows/finishes would improve crew awareness.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.