Narrative:

While departing den on the EEONS4; ATC cleared us out of our pre departure clearance limit of 10;000 to 'climb via SID to FL230.' as the pilot not flying (PNF); I was errantly thinking 'maintain FL230;' which would have been an unrestricted climb. The pilot flying (PF) was hand flying the departure; so I dialed 230 in the MCP and perceived I coordinated with the PF to delete the intermediate altitudes; thinking they were no longer necessary. The PF apparently wasn't really hearing what I was saying because he verified the steps before I executed them. He was busy hand flying and watching the altitudes on the departure and attempting to comply with them. Because I had deleted the 12;000B restriction at shobo; the flight director was climbing steeply toward that restriction. The PF attempted to level off there; still (correctly) believing we needed to comply; but the climb rate exceeded his ability to smoothly level off at 12;000 and we overshot the level off at shobo by 300- 400 feet before correcting down. The controller seemingly did not believe we were leveling off; so he issued a vector away from the fix and asserted we had been cleared to 'climb via' and not an unrestricted climb. After I acknowledged the vector; he cleared us to climb unrestricted to FL230.I made errant entries to the FMC because I mixed up the definitions of climb clearances. Ironically; I had just reviewed the study guide regarding the 'climb via' preceding a 'climb and maintain' altitude earlier in the day. Perhaps my mind had locked on the answer to that question and thought this was the same situation. In the future; I will need to double-check my thinking of such clearances. I will also reconsider the PF's task loading in coordination events where I want him/her to verify something while they are hand flying. Looking back at the climb definitions I certainly knew what each meant; and have periodically reviewed them; yet I still misapplied them in this circumstance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: B737-700 First Officer (FO) experiences a navigation display failure during takeoff which quickly corrects itself once airborne. ATC assigns a heading of 100 but the Captain sets 010 in the MCP which the FO does not detect due to troubleshooting the navigation display problem. Later in the EEONS4 departure; ATC assigns a climb via to FL230 which the Captain interprets as a climb to FL230. An overshoot occurs at SHOBO.

Narrative: While departing DEN on the EEONS4; ATC cleared us out of our PDC limit of 10;000 to 'climb via SID to FL230.' As the pilot not flying (PNF); I was errantly thinking 'maintain FL230;' which would have been an unrestricted climb. The pilot flying (PF) was hand flying the departure; so I dialed 230 in the MCP and perceived I coordinated with the PF to delete the intermediate altitudes; thinking they were no longer necessary. The PF apparently wasn't really hearing what I was saying because he verified the steps before I executed them. He was busy hand flying and watching the altitudes on the departure and attempting to comply with them. Because I had deleted the 12;000B restriction at SHOBO; the flight director was climbing steeply toward that restriction. The PF attempted to level off there; still (correctly) believing we needed to comply; but the climb rate exceeded his ability to smoothly level off at 12;000 and we overshot the level off at SHOBO by 300- 400 feet before correcting down. The Controller seemingly did not believe we were leveling off; so he issued a vector away from the fix and asserted we had been cleared to 'climb via' and not an unrestricted climb. After I acknowledged the vector; he cleared us to climb unrestricted to FL230.I made errant entries to the FMC because I mixed up the definitions of climb clearances. Ironically; I had just reviewed the study guide regarding the 'climb via' preceding a 'climb and maintain' altitude earlier in the day. Perhaps my mind had locked on the answer to that question and thought this was the same situation. In the future; I will need to double-check my thinking of such clearances. I will also reconsider the PF's task loading in coordination events where I want him/her to verify something while they are hand flying. Looking back at the climb definitions I certainly knew what each meant; and have periodically reviewed them; yet I still misapplied them in this circumstance.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.