Narrative:

For our descent into bos; we were initially filed on the gardner 4 arrival. At some point during our descent; ATC asked if we could accept the quabn 3 RNAV arrival. As pilot monitoring; I replied 'stand-by' to ATC so that the pilot flying and I could review the quabn 3 RNAV arrival before accepting it. We mutually determined that we could accept the change in the arrival and notified ATC. We were then cleared present position direct to the urowt intersection on the quabn 3 RNAV arrival. At some point while direct urowt; we were told to expect to cross urowt at 11;000; however; we did not actually receive clearance to cross urowt at 11;000 feet until we were already within 15-18 nautical miles from the fix. I do not recall what specific altitude we were at when we received the clearance down to 11;000 feet; but we were above FL200 with a substantial tailwind. We tried in good faith to meet the crossing restriction; but was unable. We notified ATC that we would not meet the crossing restriction about 3 nautical miles prior to urowt. It is worth mentioning in this report; that while flying this arrival; we were given 3 different runway assignments (runway 33L; 27; and 32). Considering that the quabn 3 RNAV arrival is runway specific; our workload was exponentially increased due to trying to comply with altitude restrictions and making sure we were on the proper lateral courses for the assigned runway. We could have notified ATC of our inability to meet the crossing restriction earlier in the descent. ATC should not assign too many runway changes during runway specific arrivals.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An EMB-135 flight crew initially cleared by the GARDNER STAR but switched to descend on the QUABN RNAV STAR to BOS with a substantial tailwind--was unable to comply with an ATC directed crossing altitudes at UROWT. Multiple runway changes combined with imprecise altitude expectations created a flight crew workload environment that forced them to reply 'unable' to the last runway change.

Narrative: For our descent into BOS; we were initially filed on the GARDNER 4 arrival. At some point during our descent; ATC asked if we could accept the QUABN 3 RNAV arrival. As pilot monitoring; I replied 'stand-by' to ATC so that the pilot flying and I could review the QUABN 3 RNAV arrival before accepting it. We mutually determined that we could accept the change in the arrival and notified ATC. We were then cleared present position direct to the UROWT intersection on the QUABN 3 RNAV arrival. At some point while direct UROWT; we were told to expect to cross UROWT at 11;000; however; we did not actually receive clearance to cross UROWT at 11;000 feet until we were already within 15-18 nautical miles from the fix. I do not recall what specific altitude we were at when we received the clearance down to 11;000 feet; but we were above FL200 with a substantial tailwind. We tried in good faith to meet the crossing restriction; but was unable. We notified ATC that we would not meet the crossing restriction about 3 nautical miles prior to UROWT. It is worth mentioning in this report; that while flying this arrival; we were given 3 different runway assignments (Runway 33L; 27; and 32). Considering that the QUABN 3 RNAV arrival is runway specific; our workload was exponentially increased due to trying to comply with altitude restrictions and making sure we were on the proper lateral courses for the assigned runway. We could have notified ATC of our inability to meet the crossing restriction earlier in the descent. ATC should not assign too many runway changes during runway specific arrivals.

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.