Narrative:

This was the second leg of a two leg day. I was the pilot flying. The flight experienced issues immediately after takeoff as the autothrottles were not responding to the thrust management computer. As the issue was not immediately serious; the throttles were flown manually to altitude where the malfunction could be assessed. Subsequently the thrust management computer failed. We complied with checklist guidance and prepared the aircraft for descent as the flight was very short. Hand flying of the throttles was required and close attention to airspeed control required higher than normal pilot flying attention. During the SID descent and approaching 10;000 ft; the approach controller cleared us to the VOR; a fix not on the flight plan or SID. The pilot not flying asked for the phonetics. The pilot not flying heard the wrong phonetics and thought the clearance was to another VOR. The pilot not flying is of international descent and has an accent which may have contributed to the communication error. The error was not noticed by the either the pilot flying or the controller in the read back. Initially the turn direction seemed odd to me. We briefly discussed it and the pilot not flying explained and showed what he did. Since my mind was overly focused on airspeed control I did not recognize the error (at the time of the error I was focusing the majority of my attention to on airspeed control as we were transitioning airspeed as we passed through 10;000 ft). I also believe a minor amount of duty time fatigue dulled my ability to properly assess the error. We turned in the direction of the wrong fix. The controller queried us and the error became immediately apparent to all of us. The controller vectored us on the remainder of the approach. No other issues occurred but the increased workload from the thrust management computer inoperative in the cockpit was noticeable.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B757's Thrust Management Computer failed during climb so on a very short flight the crew had to calculate go around EPR's while manually managing cruise and descent speeds and so after a hear back read back error did not realized that an incorrect NAVAID was entered in the FMC which resulted in a track error.

Narrative: This was the second leg of a two leg day. I was the pilot flying. The flight experienced issues immediately after takeoff as the autothrottles were not responding to the thrust management computer. As the issue was not immediately serious; the throttles were flown manually to altitude where the malfunction could be assessed. Subsequently the thrust management computer failed. We complied with checklist guidance and prepared the aircraft for descent as the flight was very short. Hand flying of the throttles was required and close attention to airspeed control required higher than normal pilot flying attention. During the SID descent and approaching 10;000 FT; the Approach Controller cleared us to the VOR; a fix not on the flight plan or SID. The pilot not flying asked for the phonetics. The pilot not flying heard the wrong phonetics and thought the clearance was to another VOR. The pilot not flying is of international descent and has an accent which may have contributed to the communication error. The error was not noticed by the either the pilot flying or the Controller in the read back. Initially the turn direction seemed odd to me. We briefly discussed it and the pilot not flying explained and showed what he did. Since my mind was overly focused on airspeed control I did not recognize the error (at the time of the error I was focusing the majority of my attention to on airspeed control as we were transitioning airspeed as we passed through 10;000 FT). I also believe a minor amount of duty time fatigue dulled my ability to properly assess the error. We turned in the direction of the wrong fix. The Controller queried us and the error became immediately apparent to all of us. The Controller vectored us on the remainder of the approach. No other issues occurred but the increased workload from the thrust management computer inoperative in the cockpit was noticeable.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.