Narrative:

ATC cleared us for the visual to 18R and told us we had an 80 knot overtake on the 757 ahead (we were complying with their previous speed requests). ATC told us to stay at 2500 ft until the orl VOR. ATC asked us if we wanted the visual for 18L. We had it in sight and were still high enough to transition and be spooled by a thousand ft; so we accepted the landing clearance on 18L. ATC had not reissued the clearance to stay at 2500 ft AGL over orl VOR and I was not completely sure whether we still needed to comply with it as we had been cleared to land on 18L now. Before I could query ATC the flying pilot started a slow descent below 2500 ft as we were very high on the glidepath. ATC called us and asked us to hold our new altitude (2300 ft) until we were past the orl VOR. We complied and landed uneventfully. I believe the event occurred because neither of us was as alert as we should have been at that time of day. This; included with a high workload situation; helped create the error. I am an am reserve pilot but had been reassigned to a different rest schedule and was flying during the time that I would have usually been sleeping. I believe this is the primary reason the event was not caught/prevented by myself as the non-flying pilot. The other issue is of course the requirement to be over orl VOR at 2500 ft. When this is complied with it creates a full scale deflection of the glideslope. This makes it extremely difficult to be stabilized; configured and spooled by 1000 ft AGL. We have received many memos from the company about unstable approaches into mco and there is extra emphasis on making sure approaches there are stable. Unfortunately; the company has offered us no other assistance or training on how to better comply with the special nature of the arrivals into mco. I believe it is inherently unsafe to be messing with pilots' circadian rhythms. This unsafe practice has to come to an end before someone is hurt or killed. It happens all of the time. I understand that I am responsible for my own decision whether I am safe to fly or not and I have called off of trips when I was fatigued in the past. When I started the leg to mco I felt like I was okay to complete the flight safely. Fatigue is insidious and it is difficult to be continually trying to ascertain my fitness to fly on a weekly basis when the company is constantly turning over our body clocks. It seems to me that we have a culture that is allowing safety to take a back seat to other financial/operational issues. I also believe ATC should allow us to slow down prior to crossing orl as it is the only way we can comply with the 2500 ft crossing restriction over orl and still be stabilized; configured and spooled by 1000 ft AGL. They are frequently asking us to keep our speed too high for spacing reasons.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Flight crew of a medium large transport inbound to MCO departed cleared altitude prematurely when ATC cleared them to land on 18L vice 18R as previously cleared. Fatigue due to a disrupted rest cycle may have contributed.

Narrative: ATC cleared us for the visual to 18R and told us we had an 80 knot overtake on the 757 ahead (we were complying with their previous speed requests). ATC told us to stay at 2500 FT until the ORL VOR. ATC asked us if we wanted the visual for 18L. We had it in sight and were still high enough to transition and be spooled by a thousand FT; so we accepted the landing clearance on 18L. ATC had not reissued the clearance to stay at 2500 FT AGL over ORL VOR and I was not completely sure whether we still needed to comply with it as we had been cleared to land on 18L now. Before I could query ATC the flying pilot started a slow descent below 2500 FT as we were very high on the glidepath. ATC called us and asked us to hold our new altitude (2300 FT) until we were past the ORL VOR. We complied and landed uneventfully. I believe the event occurred because neither of us was as alert as we should have been at that time of day. This; included with a high workload situation; helped create the error. I am an AM Reserve pilot but had been reassigned to a different rest schedule and was flying during the time that I would have usually been sleeping. I believe this is the primary reason the event was not caught/prevented by myself as the non-flying pilot. The other issue is of course the requirement to be over ORL VOR at 2500 FT. When this is complied with it creates a full scale deflection of the glideslope. This makes it extremely difficult to be stabilized; configured and spooled by 1000 FT AGL. We have received many memos from the company about unstable approaches into MCO and there is extra emphasis on making sure approaches there are stable. Unfortunately; the company has offered us no other assistance or training on how to better comply with the special nature of the arrivals into MCO. I believe it is inherently unsafe to be messing with pilots' circadian rhythms. This unsafe practice has to come to an end before someone is hurt or killed. It happens all of the time. I understand that I am responsible for my own decision whether I am safe to fly or not and I have called off of trips when I was fatigued in the past. When I started the leg to MCO I felt like I was okay to complete the flight safely. Fatigue is insidious and it is difficult to be continually trying to ascertain my fitness to fly on a weekly basis when the company is constantly turning over our body clocks. It seems to me that we have a culture that is allowing safety to take a back seat to other financial/operational issues. I also believe ATC should allow us to slow down prior to crossing ORL as it is the only way we can comply with the 2500 FT crossing restriction over ORL and still be stabilized; configured and spooled by 1000 FT AGL. They are frequently asking us to keep our speed too high for spacing reasons.

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.