Flight Crew Commercial
Workload; Time Pressure; Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown; Human-Machine Interface
Deviation - Altitude Crossing Restriction Not Met; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Procedure; Chart Or Publication; Human Factors; Aircraft
We were returning to MEM with the FNCHR RNAV STAR and the landing north transition inserted into the FMS (long downwind legs included). This was loaded in flight after takeoff and since we had been landing north in Memphis for the entire trip and my entire trip before this one; I did not expect much of a change. We started the descent on profile; but we did not realize that a change had been made to the flow of traffic in Memphis to a landing south transition until it was too late to make all of the speed restrictions on the arrival and we ended up being high on one of the restrictions (although not by much and ATC did not make any sort of comment on our descent.) Once we got below 10;000 FT; we were in a normal position to continue the arrival. Runway flow change; if one is expecting an RNAV arrival with a long leisurely downwind and all of a sudden a new transition arrival is inserted; one has to quickly verify the FMS altitude and speed restrictions on the FMC with the ones on the chart. The information on many of the Memphis RNAV arrival charts are not presented in an easy to read format and they take much time to read; understand; and interpret compared to the arrivals that we are commonly given in Atlanta. [I am concerned that] any sort of additional distraction or system failure is going to make it very difficult to follow these procedures.We need simpler RNAV arrival procedures in the Memphis area and less of them. We do not need all of these RNAV arrivals into an airport that has lost a great deal of its traffic.
A CRJ had pre-programmed the 'landing north' transition on the FNCHR RNAV STAR to MEM and realized too late that the airport had switched to landing to the south; eliminating the long downwind track and lowering the appropriate crossing altitudes on the arrival. A modest failure to cross at the required altitude at one waypoint resulted.