Narrative:

We were told to descend via the ravnn 3 arrival into bwi. Passing around 16;500 ft at a vertical rate of around 3000 FPM; the aircraft was established on the arrival and south of the sabbi intersection; which has a crossing restriction of 15;000 ft. At that time I noticed that the captain (pilot flying) had correctly set in 6000 ft in the altitude window (last published altitude on arrival over ravnn) but had failed to notice that the aircraft MCP mode was in lvl chg and not VNAV. I called out the error; but the captain was distracted with making the other crossing restrictions further down route of sabbi so there was some delay in taking corrective action. We were steeper on the descent profile for sabbi and therefore were going to cross it at a lower altitude than the published restriction of 15;000 ft. I called out the error once again and said we would cross sabbi lower than 15;000 ft and that sabbi was a hard restriction and not a '15;000 ft or lower restriction.' corrective action was now taken but too late to meet the restriction. The aircraft leveled at 14;200 ft crossing sabbi. Nothing was said by ATC and the remaining arrival was uneventful. I contribute the mistake to lack of proficiency with VNAV operations and an inability to take quick corrective action due to that lack of proficiency. I also should have caught the error sooner which would have given more time for discussion.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An air carrier flight crew of a medium large turbojet aircraft believed they had failed to meet a crossing restriction over SABBI on the RAVNN RNAV STAR.

Narrative: We were told to descend via the RAVNN 3 Arrival into BWI. Passing around 16;500 FT at a vertical rate of around 3000 FPM; the aircraft was established on the arrival and south of the SABBI intersection; which has a crossing restriction of 15;000 FT. At that time I noticed that the Captain (pilot flying) had correctly set in 6000 FT in the altitude window (last published altitude on arrival over RAVNN) but had failed to notice that the aircraft MCP mode was in LVL CHG and not VNAV. I called out the error; but the Captain was distracted with making the other crossing restrictions further down route of SABBI so there was some delay in taking corrective action. We were steeper on the descent profile for SABBI and therefore were going to cross it at a lower altitude than the published restriction of 15;000 FT. I called out the error once again and said we would cross SABBI lower than 15;000 FT and that SABBI was a hard restriction and not a '15;000 FT or lower restriction.' Corrective action was now taken but too late to meet the restriction. The aircraft leveled at 14;200 FT crossing SABBI. Nothing was said by ATC and the remaining arrival was uneventful. I contribute the mistake to lack of proficiency with VNAV operations and an inability to take quick corrective action due to that lack of proficiency. I also should have caught the error sooner which would have given more time for discussion.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.