Narrative:

We were approaching pvd airport on the teddy 3 arrival inbound for the ILS to runway 5. ATC broke us off the arrival for traffic and began to vector us onto about a fifteen mile final to runway 5. The instructions we were initially given for the final approach course were to fly heading 080 and descend to 2;000 ft. I believe we were at 7;000 ft at the time. I started the descent at 1;500 FPM to 2;000 ft. For spacing and additional traffic; ATC flew us through the localizer. Then; we were given instructions to go direct to pvd. While still in IMC; I turned back direct to the airport from the FMS. ATC then advised that we had VFR traffic at about 11 o'clock and 2;700 ft. We responded we were IMC. As we continued to descend on the approach; passing through 3;000 ft; ATC advised that to avoid traffic we were to amend altitude to 3;000 ft. This was at 2;900 ft in the descent. I quickly pressed the alt button but the aircraft was too slow to respond. At that point the aircraft was still descending through 2;800 ft. We got a traffic alert followed immediately by the aural warning 'crossing conflict - monitor vertical speed'. At this point I clicked off the auto pilot and added go-around thrust and began to climb. We then received the resolution advisory 'climb-climb now' I pulled back to initiate a climb greater than the 2;500 FPM as advised. I watched the red square pass directly under us reading -01. A few seconds later we received the 'clear of conflict' message and at 3;600 ft I began to level back off. ATC advised us that we could then descend back to 2;000 ft. At the time we were between kenti and cutsi so we continued on the approach uneventfully. The whole incident took place under IMC conditions. The event occurred primarily due to a VFR aircraft in IMC conditions at 2;700 ft in the approach area of pvd. ATC also failed to advise us in time for us to maintain acceptable separation from the traffic. The 'stop the descent at 3;000 ft' instruction came after we had already passed through it. Still that would have only given us 300 ft of separation. Also; there was a significant amount of traffic in the vicinity of pvd at the time.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: An RJ Captain reported an NMAC in the vicinity of PVD while in instrument meteorological conditions with a VFR aircraf.

Narrative: We were approaching PVD airport on the Teddy 3 arrival inbound for the ILS to Runway 5. ATC broke us off the arrival for traffic and began to vector us onto about a fifteen mile final to Runway 5. The instructions we were initially given for the final approach course were to fly heading 080 and descend to 2;000 FT. I believe we were at 7;000 FT at the time. I started the descent at 1;500 FPM to 2;000 FT. For spacing and additional traffic; ATC flew us through the localizer. Then; we were given instructions to go direct to PVD. While still in IMC; I turned back direct to the airport from the FMS. ATC then advised that we had VFR traffic at about 11 o'clock and 2;700 FT. We responded we were IMC. As we continued to descend on the approach; passing through 3;000 FT; ATC advised that to avoid traffic we were to amend altitude to 3;000 FT. This was at 2;900 FT in the descent. I quickly pressed the alt button but the aircraft was too slow to respond. At that point the aircraft was still descending through 2;800 FT. We got a traffic alert followed immediately by the aural warning 'Crossing Conflict - Monitor Vertical Speed'. At this point I clicked off the auto pilot and added go-around thrust and began to climb. We then received the resolution advisory 'climb-climb now' I pulled back to initiate a climb greater than the 2;500 FPM as advised. I watched the red square pass directly under us reading -01. A few seconds later we received the 'clear of conflict' message and at 3;600 FT I began to level back off. ATC advised us that we could then descend back to 2;000 FT. At the time we were between KENTI and CUTSI so we continued on the approach uneventfully. The whole incident took place under IMC conditions. The event occurred primarily due to a VFR aircraft in IMC conditions at 2;700 FT in the approach area of PVD. ATC also failed to advise us in time for us to maintain acceptable separation from the traffic. The 'stop the descent at 3;000 FT' instruction came after we had already passed through it. Still that would have only given us 300 FT of separation. Also; there was a significant amount of traffic in the vicinity of PVD at the time.

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.