A B737 flight crew landing at lax was issued a late runway change. They were 'heads down' for signif...

Narrative:

While accomplishing the RIIVR2 arrival to lax we were given the ILS runway 25L. Approximately 5 miles prior to the riivr fix (common to both runway 25L and 24R) we were told to utilize runway 24R.approach control had us fly a speed higher than recommended by the FMS and they started our descent on the arrival later than optimum. When the change to runway 24R was given to us; we had little time to enter it into the FMS; reduce our speed and return to a normal vertical profile. We were able to safely accomplish everything to get the aircraft in a position to land and meet the stabilized approach criteria but not without significant effort and much 'heads down' time close to the airport in a high traffic area. It is not uncommon to be kept high and fast and given last minute runway changes at lax. I believe our combined flight experience and good CRM were critical to a safe outcome. Had there been marginal weather or an inexperienced crew; there is a high potential for task saturation close to the ground; at a very busy airport; with a different outcome.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737 flight crew landing at LAX was issued a late runway change. They were 'heads down' for significant amount of time in a highly congested traffic area but were able to comply with the instructions and land safely.

Narrative: While accomplishing the RIIVR2 arrival to LAX we were given the ILS RWY 25L. Approximately 5 miles prior to the RIIVR fix (common to both RWY 25L and 24R) we were told to utilize RWY 24R.Approach Control had us fly a speed higher than recommended by the FMS and they started our descent on the arrival later than optimum. When the change to runway 24R was given to us; we had little time to enter it into the FMS; reduce our speed and return to a normal vertical profile. We were able to safely accomplish everything to get the aircraft in a position to land and meet the stabilized approach criteria but not without significant effort and much 'heads down' time close to the airport in a high traffic area. It is not uncommon to be kept high and fast and given last minute runway changes at LAX. I believe our combined flight experience and good CRM were critical to a safe outcome. Had there been marginal weather or an inexperienced crew; there is a high potential for task saturation close to the ground; at a very busy airport; with a different outcome.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1236230
Time
Date	201501
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	LAX.Airport
State Reference	CA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	B737 Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent Initial Approach
Route In Use	STAR RIIVR TWO
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying First Officer
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 118 Flight Crew Type 1740
Events
Anomaly	No Specific Anomaly Occurred All Types

A B737 flight crew landing at lax was issued a late runway change. They were 'heads down' for significant amount of time in a highly congested traffic area but were able to comply with the instructions and land safely.