B737-700
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 136
Time Pressure; Human-Machine Interface
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation - Altitude Undershoot; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Human Factors
ATC cleared us for a different approach and runway. The time it took to program the FMC caused us to be slightly delayed in descending to our next altitude. ATC asked us if we were descending via to make sure and we quickly got right back on profile.The late change to the RNAV Visual 19R approach was the reason. The FMC doesn't load all the altitudes for you so you have to manually put them in and that little bit of extra time was just enough to make us late descending.
The time required for the B737-700 flight crew to program an ATC assigned approach/runway change prevented them from initiating a descent required by their RNAV STAR assignment.