Narrative:

Descending into syr. There is no published STAR; so we set a point distance in the FMS; 30 west of syr at 10;000 feet. The flight plan read dkk; syr. We added the pbd fix; which came before dkk. Cleveland center cleared us direct to syr; cross 30 west of syr at 11;000.around the same time as we were receiving the clearance to cross; the atis came in range on comm2. Runway 28 ILS was being entered. There was discontinuity between the approach and the airport; dkk and our pbd fix were still showing; while the FMS was direct the airport. I set to cleaning up the flight plan; re-directing to syr and then adding the crossing restriction; adding runway 28; getting landing data; which happened almost simultaneously. While entering crossing restriction; mcdu message 'landing data available' interrupted my typing in the scratchpad. ATC inquired of the crossing restriction and vnav appeared to be nearly ready to commence descent; so I continued going about getting landing speeds and performing other pre landing tasks.we began our descent via VNAV and a quick mental math check; we looked good. At 17;000 feet ATC inquired again if we were going to make the crossing of 30@11;000 feet. VNAV path was right on and a glance at distance on progress page of 85 miles; I was unsure why the second inquiry. ATC stated he was showing us 27 miles from syr and I was telling him we saw 85 miles. It took a couple minutes to discover that the pd in the FMS was 10 miles instead of 30. A few seconds later I was able to put it together that the 85 miles was the discontinuity built on top of the direct to field fix. When re-entering the crossing fix; I must have skipped a/ and the 10;000 feet ended up as 10 miles. We increased rate of descent and arrived at 11;000 feet approx 25 miles from the airport. Cleveland center did to comment further and handed us off to approach control.

Related reports:

Google
 

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: EMB-170 flight crew reports becoming confused attempting to program the FMC to cross 30 NM west of the airport at 11;000 feet. The PBD fix was entered as 10 NM instead of 30 and not detected until prompted by ATC and the crossing restriction was missed.

Narrative: Descending into SYR. There is no published STAR; so we set a point distance in the FMS; 30 West of SYR at 10;000 feet. The flight plan read DKK; SYR. We added the PBD fix; which came before DKK. Cleveland center cleared us direct to SYR; cross 30 west of SYR at 11;000.Around the same time as we were receiving the clearance to cross; the atis came in range on comm2. Runway 28 ILS was being entered. There was discontinuity between the approach and the airport; DKK and our PBD fix were still showing; while the FMS was direct the airport. I set to cleaning up the flight plan; re-directing to SYR and then adding the crossing restriction; adding Runway 28; getting landing data; which happened almost simultaneously. While entering crossing restriction; MCDU message 'landing data available' interrupted my typing in the scratchpad. ATC inquired of the crossing restriction and vnav appeared to be nearly ready to commence descent; so I continued going about getting landing speeds and performing other pre landing tasks.We began our descent via VNAV and a quick mental math check; we looked good. At 17;000 feet ATC inquired again if we were going to make the crossing of 30@11;000 feet. VNAV path was right on and a glance at distance on progress page of 85 miles; I was unsure why the second inquiry. ATC stated he was showing us 27 miles from SYR and I was telling him we saw 85 miles. It took a couple minutes to discover that the PD in the FMS was 10 miles instead of 30. A few seconds later I was able to put it together that the 85 miles was the discontinuity built on top of the direct to field fix. When re-entering the crossing fix; I must have skipped a/ and the 10;000 feet ended up as 10 miles. We increased rate of descent and arrived at 11;000 feet approx 25 miles from the airport. Cleveland center did to comment further and handed us off to approach control.

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.