Regional Jet 900 (CRJ900)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Workload; Troubleshooting; Training / Qualification; Confusion; Distraction
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew FLC complied w / Automation / Advisory
Aircraft; Procedure
Coming into land on 36L we were vectored for a short approach. The FO used the spoilers to help get down to cross the fixes at the appropriate altitude. At about 3000 feet I watched him retract the flight spoilers. As we continued on the approach everything looked good. He was stable at 1000 feet and there was no green spoilers deployed message. At 500 feet he was on the bug sinking 700 fpm. The power and pitch seemed to be correct for the 900. At about 250 feet we got the flight spoilers deployed caution message. I looked down and it looked like they were retracted and I had seen him retract the handle. I pushed on the lever and they had accidentally been left out one notch. After I stowed them the pitch/power remained the same to hold glide. As we were still on speed; on LOC/glide; and at an appropriate pitch/power setting; I determined it would be safer to continue and land then execute a missed that low to the ground. We landed without any issues.  The event occurred because of the use of spoilers to get down. We both thought he had completely retracted the spoilers and the angle of the lever even looked like the spoilers were at 0. It wasn't until after the message popped up that I realized they were still out.Since he was hand flying at this point; I retracted the spoilers for him so he could keep his hands on the thrust levers and yoke. No pitch/power corrections were needed and we were stable other than the spoilers so we landed.I was taught as a FO to always leave my hand on the spoilers lever when you use them to prevent you from accidentally leaving them out. This is what I try to teach because every time I have seen this technique used it has never failed. However; in this case he didn't forget to retract them. We both thought he had retracted them he just missed the 0 setting.
A CRJ-900 First Officer had extended the spoilers around 3;000 feet to help his descent profile. The spoiler handle appeared fully down; but at 250 feet the SPOILER DEPLOYED caution alerted. The Captain found the spoiler handle not fully in the retracted detent.