A corporate aircraft's FMS had a stored route through ZAU airspace with an intersection named arlyn ...

Attributes
ACN	1009174
Time
Date	201205
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZAU.ARTCC
State Reference	IL
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Light Transport Low Wing 2 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	FMS/FMC
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Multiengine
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 55 Flight Crew Total 7000 Flight Crew Type 4500
Person 2
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 55 Flight Crew Total 14000 Flight Crew Type 7000
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

Narrative:

We have flown this route many times and the route clearance is always a series of intersections (acito-adell-arlyn-agnus-.....). We have this route stored in our FMS database. Most times we are cleared direct to our destination prior to reaching adell intersection. On the flight above we were not cleared direct and made the turn from adell to arlyn. A few moments later chicago center asked us to fly a 190 heading for the climb. He then asked what fix we were navigation to. We responded arlin. He then informed us that our heading was not correct for arlyn. It did not take us long to realize that arlyn was misspelled in our stored flight plan database. We understand that there are thousands of intersections and that it is difficult to make all intersection names unique. There are several intersections with the name arlyn spelled in different ways. The difference in heading between arlyn and arlin from our position was 56 degrees. Another arlen was 17 degrees off our course. This error could have been avoided if a published SID existed for this airport. Having the SID in the database would prevent the misspelling of intersection names.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Corporate aircraft's FMS had a stored route through ZAU airspace with an intersection named ARLYN instead of ARLIN which caused ATC to question the aircraft's routing.

Narrative: We have flown this route many times and the route clearance is always a series of intersections (ACITO-ADELL-ARLYN-AGNUS-.....). We have this route stored in our FMS database. Most times we are cleared direct to our destination prior to reaching ADELL Intersection. On the flight above we were not cleared direct and made the turn from ADELL to ARLYN. A few moments later Chicago Center asked us to fly a 190 heading for the climb. He then asked what fix we were navigation to. We responded ARLIN. He then informed us that our heading was not correct for ARLYN. It did not take us long to realize that ARLYN was misspelled in our stored flight plan database. We understand that there are thousands of intersections and that it is difficult to make all intersection names unique. There are several intersections with the name ARLYN spelled in different ways. The difference in heading between ARLYN and ARLIN from our position was 56 degrees. Another ARLEN was 17 degrees off our course. This error could have been avoided if a published SID existed for this airport. Having the SID in the database would prevent the misspelling of intersection names.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

A corporate aircraft's FMS had a stored route through ZAU airspace with an intersection named arlyn instead of arlin which caused ATC to question the aircraft's routing.