B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Human-Machine Interface
Deviation - Altitude Crossing Restriction Not Met; Deviation - Altitude Overshoot; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Human Factors
We were getting extended down wind vectors for ILS 17R. Approach Control said to fly direct to HISSY; cross HISSY at 9;000 feet cleared approach. Coming from the South; we were not set up for the transitions had to manually insert them. We mistakenly did not insert JOMAG and started down in VNAV to cross JOSEE at 8;000 feet. That put us low over JOMAG.
The occurrence occurred during the approach phase of the flight. I was the Pilot flying. We were on a left downwind still tracking on the JAGGR 3 arrival approximately 23 miles from the airport. I don't remember the exact altitude; but believe that we were still at 10;000 feet prior to turning the base leg. I new that at some point the controller would turn us onto a base leg for intercept to the final approach course and saw that the discontinuity between the star and approach began at JOSEE. I mentioned to the Captain that perhaps we should put in the extra fixes for reference and altitude awareness on the approach. The captain said that we could use DME and I agreed. In retrospect I should have insisted that we put in the fixes. The controller then issued vectors for the base leg and had us descend to 9;000 feet. On the turn I asked for the captain to extend JOSEE. The controller then issued us a heading to intercept the final approach course and to cross HISSY at 9;000 feet and cleared for the approach. That caused some confusion because we couldn't find HISSY on the chart. I had expanded the chart to see the right side of the approach chart and until I realized it was on the left side under the transition was I then able to determine the distance at which we were cleared to descend below 9;000 feet. Now that I look back on this whole approach I realized that we should have never extended the final approach course. We should have loaded the box with the runway/ approach/ TRANSITION to HOOPE/ and then the star. We just expected to do what we always do once the controller takes us off the STAR and that is to extend the final approach segment for intercept.Once we got past the confusion we were then issued another clearance. I didn't hear the clearance since I was trying to determine the next fix. I hadn't armed the approach at this stage because I felt that we were still far out and wanted LNAV to track us in a little closer. I also didn't want the glide slope to capture since we had more crossing restrictions. The Captain then stated to me that the glide slope was showing us high on the approach. He dialed down the altitude and told me that we needed to hurry and get the descent started. At first I was confused and couldn't understand how we were high. Looking at the instrument at first had me agreeing with his statement. At 8;500 feet I realized that this couldn't be correct because we were to far from the runway for the glide slope to be showing a descent. I stopped the descent and told the Captain it had to be a false glide slope. I then showed the Captain that we couldn't descend because we had to stay above 8;000 feet till JOSEE. It took him a few minutes to figure this out and then agreed it must be a false glide slope. I realized that I hadn't even armed the approach button. I armed the button and then we were given the correct indication on the PDI. I told the Captain that we both were looking at the Vertical path indicator for VNAV. We continued with no further issues.
After being vectored by Approach Control off of the arrival procedure to an intercept heading for FAC; B737 crew failed to ensure that appropriate fix on the transition portion of the approach procedure that included their altitude-crossing restriction; was displayed on the FMS. The crew descended early by following a false glide slope indication; which was likely a VNAV path indication; before the approach was armed in the FMS.