B767 captain describes and evening departure from a large hub airport with three of his company's ai...

Attributes
ACN	1111470
Time
Date	201308
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B767 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Taxi
Person 1
Function	Pilot Not Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 220 Flight Crew Total 24000 Flight Crew Type 11000
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Other / Unknown Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown

Narrative:

A similar call sign on the same frequency can be a potential for taking a wrong clearance; but when there are three similar call signs the potential just escalates for all involved. This was the case we encountered last week on departure. There was a flight xa; flight wa and we were flight xwa. All our departures were around [the same time]. We all contacted ground control about the same time. While the ground controller gave instructions at a rapid pace to expedite operations; the similar call signs were mistakenly answered by the wrong airplane at various times. Even the controller got confused at one point. Fortunately; the mistakenly answered call signs were quickly recognized and did not cause any clearance deviations.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B767 Captain describes and evening departure from a large hub airport with three of his company's aircraft having similar sounding call signs and the miscommunications that ensue.

Narrative: A similar call sign on the same frequency can be a potential for taking a wrong clearance; but when there are three similar call signs the potential just escalates for all involved. This was the case we encountered last week on departure. There was a Flight XA; Flight WA and we were Flight XWA. All our departures were around [the same time]. We all contacted Ground Control about the same time. While the Ground Controller gave instructions at a rapid pace to expedite operations; the similar call signs were mistakenly answered by the wrong airplane at various times. Even the Controller got confused at one point. Fortunately; the mistakenly answered call signs were quickly recognized and did not cause any clearance deviations.

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.

B767 captain describes and evening departure from a large hub airport with three of his company's aircraft having similar sounding call signs and the miscommunications that ensue.