Regional Jet 900 (CRJ900)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Situational Awareness; Confusion
Deviation - Altitude Crossing Restriction Not Met; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors
We were given direct Carter landing north configuration. Center gave us a clearance to either descend and maintain 16;000ft or cross Carter at 16;000ft. I believe it was to cross Carter at 16;000ft and my First Officer believes it was to descend and maintain 16000ft. I was the PNF and read back the clearance and verified the altitude in the alerter. We were close and high when given the clearance but I believed we could do it. On the approach plate it states expect Carter at FL190 landing north. We started down and I went off to say goodbye to the passengers and call ops. When I came back we were 10 miles from Carter at FL190. Just then we were told to contact approach. As I checked on and read our altitude I realized we were going to be high at Carter. Approach said to descend via the arrival. I mentioned to my FO that we needed to hustle to cross Carter at 16000 ft. My FO stated it was a descend and maintain; not a crossing restriction; and we were given descend via regardless before we crossed the fix. I thought he had a good point and I began to question what I heard. I'm still not sure. We were at FL187 crossing Carter. Carter is an 'expect' at FL190; we were given either a decent to or a crossing restriction at 16000 ft; but before we hit the fix we were cleared to descend via. This all happened at the same time we were crossing the fix. My FO and I could not agree on what we heard and we were already complying with our descend via so we decided not to draw attention to ourselves and ask for clarification about something that had already happened and there was nothing we could do to change. We were the only aircraft on frequency and nobody said anything so I figured I just heard it wrong and left it at that. The root cause was miscommunication and distraction. We were given various step down decent from center so I left the seat belt sign on for awhile.  I think I waited a little too long to turn it on. It also comes down to teamwork and timely action. When I said we needed to descend faster to meet the restriction my FO first questioned the restriction and then said we couldn't make it anyway. During this back and forth between the two of us we were given a new descend via clearance. By acting in a timely and conservative manner to resolve the issue in question; by just simply hustling down to 16000 ft; it would have been a non issue. Write down crossing restrictions and clearances. Ask in a timely manner if there is a question. Talk to the passengers before you get a crossing restriction. Work together as a team and act conservatively if there is any question as to what you heard. We were given 16000 ft; we both agreed on that; it was the crossing restriction that was in question. Had we just worked together to cross it at 16000 ft we would have been fine either way.
CRJ-900 Captain reported confusion within the cockpit on their ATC 'descend via' clearance.