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Q400 captain reported an altitude deviation that stemmed from a high workload situation in bad weather.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 1301888 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201510 |
| Local Time Of Day | 1201-1800 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | ZLA.ARTCC |
| State Reference | CA |
| Environment | |
| Flight Conditions | IMC |
| Light | Daylight |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | Q400 |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 121 |
| Flight Phase | Climb |
| Flight Plan | IFR |
| Component | |
| Aircraft Component | Weather Radar |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | Pilot Flying Captain |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) |
| Experience | Flight Crew Last 90 Days 200 Flight Crew Total 15000 Flight Crew Type 10000 |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Altitude Overshoot Deviation - Procedural Clearance Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence |
Narrative:
The very weak and notoriously unreliable weather radar in our Q400 frequently fails to turn on. Our manager of flight standards prohibits us from writing this up. He has a reset policy that has us turn the radar off; (after it first takes a half minute to find it has failed); wait 45 seconds; then turn it on. By the time it goes through its warm-up cycle the airplane may have traveled 10 miles.ATC vectored us into an embedded cumulus cell; telling us there was an area of heavy precipitation at our 12 o'clock. When the Q400 radar was available it showed us only four miles from a level three cell. Radio congestion delayed our clearance for a left turn. It was necessary to revert to level one automation to increase our turn rate. During this high workload activity first officer set the altitude alerter to 14;000. Climbing through about 10;900 ATC queried our altitude assignment. First officer thought it was 14;000; center said it was 10;000 and cleared us to 11;000.ca was flying. It was a 12 hour day following an far 117 minimum rest.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: Q400 Captain reported an altitude deviation that stemmed from a high workload situation in bad weather.
Narrative: The very weak and notoriously unreliable weather radar in our Q400 frequently fails to turn on. Our Manager of flight standards prohibits us from writing this up. He has a reset policy that has us turn the radar off; (after it first takes a half minute to find it has failed); wait 45 seconds; then turn it on. By the time it goes through its warm-up cycle the airplane may have traveled 10 miles.ATC vectored us into an embedded cumulus cell; telling us there was an area of heavy precipitation at our 12 o'clock. When the Q400 radar was available it showed us only four miles from a level three cell. Radio congestion delayed our clearance for a left turn. It was necessary to revert to level one automation to increase our turn rate. During this high workload activity FO set the altitude alerter to 14;000. Climbing through about 10;900 ATC queried our altitude assignment. FO thought it was 14;000; Center said it was 10;000 and cleared us to 11;000.CA was flying. It was a 12 hour day following an FAR 117 minimum rest.
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.