A B757 first officer programmed a crossing restriction on an arrival but failed to monitor the autom...

Narrative:

While cruising at FL330 on the piglt 2 arrival into mco; we were instructed to cross 55 NM north of mtata at FL270. I then built the crossing fix and entered it into the FMS and verified it with the captain before executing it. I then reset the altitude in the mode control panel to reflect the fix restriction altitude of FL270. We both then verified that we were in fact engaged in LNAV/VNAV; and seeing the green TOD dot on the map display; I was satisfied that were set up correctly and elected to get the arrival/approach brief out of the way a bit earlier than usual due to the possibility of thunderstorms in the vicinity of mco. It was not until after the brief that I noticed that the fix I had built and entered into the FMS was not displayed on the legs page; this at first did not ring a bell but when the controller called two seconds later to tell us to descend to FL250; I knew something was wrong. It took me a minute to figure it out and I realized that we never started our descent and did not notice because we were wrapped up in the arrival/approach brief. Fortunately there was no conflict so the controller sent us on our way with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. I think what happened was that by the time I got the fix entered we were already past top of descent for the restriction; therefore the airplane did not descend. Had I taken the time to ascertain our exact position relative to mtata; I probably would have initiated a manual descent first then gone back to VNAV after entering the fix in the FMS. This was poor situational awareness on my part and there are no excuses; I relied to heavily on the automation without first verifying where exactly we were first. When I flew rj's at my last job; we did not have VNAV coupled to the auto-pilot/auto-throttles; and I had to do all the crossing restriction calculations in my head; and you know what? I never did miss one of them.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B757 First Officer programmed a crossing restriction on an arrival but failed to monitor the automation which did not begin the descent and only after ATC issued a new descent altitude did he become aware of the error.

Narrative: While cruising at FL330 on the PIGLT 2 arrival into MCO; we were instructed to cross 55 NM North of MTATA at FL270. I then built the crossing fix and entered it into the FMS and verified it with the Captain before executing it. I then reset the altitude in the Mode Control Panel to reflect the fix restriction altitude of FL270. We both then verified that we were in fact engaged in LNAV/VNAV; and seeing the green TOD dot on the map display; I was satisfied that were set up correctly and elected to get the arrival/approach brief out of the way a bit earlier than usual due to the possibility of thunderstorms in the vicinity of MCO. It was not until after the brief that I noticed that the fix I had built and entered into the FMS was not displayed on the legs page; this at first did not ring a bell but when the Controller called two seconds later to tell us to descend to FL250; I knew something was wrong. It took me a minute to figure it out and I realized that we never started our descent and did not notice because we were wrapped up in the arrival/approach brief. Fortunately there was no conflict so the Controller sent us on our way with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. I think what happened was that by the time I got the fix entered we were already past top of descent for the restriction; therefore the airplane did not descend. Had I taken the time to ascertain our exact position relative to MTATA; I probably would have initiated a manual descent first then gone back to VNAV after entering the fix in the FMS. This was poor situational awareness on my part and there are no excuses; I relied to heavily on the automation without first verifying where exactly we were first. When I flew RJ's at my last job; we did not have VNAV coupled to the auto-pilot/auto-throttles; and I had to do all the crossing restriction calculations in my head; and you know what? I never did miss one of them.

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.

Attributes
ACN	954889
Time
Date	201106
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZMA.ARTCC
State Reference	FL
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B757 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Route In Use	STAR PIGLT 2
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	FMS/FMC
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 90 Flight Crew Total 8000 Flight Crew Type 90
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Altitude Crossing Restriction Not Met Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

A B757 first officer programmed a crossing restriction on an arrival but failed to monitor the automation which did not begin the descent and only after ATC issued a new descent altitude did he become aware of the error.