An air carrier captain reported after departing lga runway 13 and while leveling at 5;000 ft he rece...

Narrative:

After a 2 hour 45 minute delay and a 40 minute taxi out we finally departed runway 13 in lga. I was the pilot flying the tnnis RNAV departure. It was a bit bumpy and I was hand flying the departure. We were told to level off at 5;000 ft. As I passed through 4;000 ft I pulled the power back to stay within the speed limits and was leveling off at 5;000 ft when we got a heading to turn to from ATC. At the same time as I started the turn we got a; 'monitor vertical speed' as I leveled off and ATC mentioned something about traffic. I was at 5;000 ft and glanced at the target on the TCAS and I thought I saw it at 500 ft below and climbing. I looked at the HSI saw red above and for some reason (thinking the traffic was climbing) I started to relax the pressure on the yoke and started a slow climb. I eased up to approximately 5;100 ft and I realized my mistake and started back down as the aircraft told me to descend. I leveled off at 5;000 ft and was clear of the event. The other aircraft was a GA aircraft out sight seeing. Remember; don't climb or descend into a red zone on a traffic alert even if you think you see something else. Trust the system. I would have been fine if I had just leveled off.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier Captain reported after departing LGA Runway 13 and while leveling at 5;000 FT he received a TCAS RA DESCEND but mistakenly climbed into the traffic opposite the TCAS command.

Narrative: After a 2 hour 45 minute delay and a 40 minute taxi out we finally departed Runway 13 in LGA. I was the pilot flying the TNNIS RNAV departure. It was a bit bumpy and I was hand flying the departure. We were told to level off at 5;000 FT. As I passed through 4;000 FT I pulled the power back to stay within the speed limits and was leveling off at 5;000 FT when we got a heading to turn to from ATC. At the same time as I started the turn we got a; 'Monitor Vertical Speed' as I leveled off and ATC mentioned something about traffic. I was at 5;000 FT and glanced at the target on the TCAS and I thought I saw it at 500 FT below and climbing. I looked at the HSI saw red above and for some reason (thinking the traffic was climbing) I started to relax the pressure on the yoke and started a slow climb. I eased up to approximately 5;100 FT and I realized my mistake and started back down as the aircraft told me to descend. I leveled off at 5;000 FT and was clear of the event. The other aircraft was a GA aircraft out sight seeing. Remember; don't climb or descend into a red zone on a traffic alert even if you think you see something else. Trust the system. I would have been fine if I had just leveled off.

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.

Attributes
ACN	1085270
Time
Date	201305
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	N90.TRACON
State Reference	NY
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Medium Large Transport Low Wing 2 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Route In Use	SID TNNIS RNAV
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	Conflict NMAC Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Altitude Overshoot Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

An air carrier captain reported after departing lga runway 13 and while leveling at 5;000 ft he received a TCAS RA descend but mistakenly climbed into the traffic opposite the TCAS command.