Date: 201508
Local time of day: 1201-1800
Location: SYR.TRACON, NY
Flight conditions: VMC
Aircraft: Medium Large Transport; Low Wing; 2 Turbojet Eng
Operator: Air Carrier
Operating under: Part 121
Flight plan: IFR
Mission: Passenger
Flight phase: Descent
Airspace: Class E ZOB
ATC / advisory: Center ZOB
Aircraft component: FMS/FMC
Component problem: Improperly Operated
Reporter organization: Air Carrier
Reporter function: Pilot Not Flying; Captain
Reporter qualification: Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Human factors: Human-Machine Interface; Workload; Confusion
Second reporter function: Pilot Flying; First Officer
Anomaly: Deviation - Altitude Crossing Restriction Not Met; Deviation - Altitude Undershoot; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR
Detector: Person Air Traffic Control
When detected: In-flight
Result: Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Contributing factors: Aircraft; Human Factors
Primary problem: Human Factors

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.


Second narrative: Planning our arrival in SYR; with no arrival available; we were being routed DKK SYR; I had created a PBD of 30NM at 10;000 250 KTS and confirmed this with the Pilot Monitroing. The RNAV 28 approach had been loaded and reviewed. Digital ATIS was not available.While still at cruise; ATC cleared us direct to the airport. This caused the PDB previously created to drop out. While getting the new ATIS and loading the new approach; we were also instructed to cross 30NM west of the field at 11;000 ft. The Pilot Monitoring assisted me while I monitored the descent; we confirmed both the new direct to SYR as well as the new fixes for the approach. He then imputed the new PBD restriction. This occurred in high workload environment with multiple ATC communications; as well as multiple automatic inputs to the MCDU which kept overwriting what the Pilot Monitoring was typing. Once imputed; the PBD made sense as visually on the route it appeared west of the field; however; I did not confirm the actual PBD prior to it being inputted. As the Pilot Flying this was my responsibility and I should have configured the MCDU as we were still above 10;000 ft. ATC queried us if we would be able to make the crossing restriction; and as we looked in the route page we could see we still had over 30 miles to go to the field; VNAV made sense on what we were following; and quick mental math also added up. However this was all to the wrong point. A little while later ATC queried us again and we were able to catch our mistake. We leveled at 11;000 ft approximately 25 NM west of the field. In the future I will ensure to cross check the inputted PBD inputs prior to them being inserted and activated. Proper cross check of PBD prior to being entered.


Synopsis: 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.