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A flight instructor describes an incident that occurred while his student was on a solo cross country. The student became distracted while looking at the airport diagram and descended from pattern altitude to 150 feet AGL before the error is detected.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 1235827 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201501 |
| Local Time Of Day | 1201-1800 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | ZZZ.Airport |
| State Reference | US |
| Environment | |
| Flight Conditions | VMC |
| Light | Daylight |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172 |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 91 |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | Instructor |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT |
Narrative:
My student went up for a solo cross country with the departure airport takeoff beginning at around noon. Approaching the second airport my student was asked to 'follow the shoreline and report 5 miles out.' my student became flustered with the new command and pulled out airport diagram to evaluate the new situation and became distracted. To worsen the situation; my student had also set the wrong altimeter setting in his flight instruments so altitude was off. Slowly he began a descent down to 100 feet - 150 AGL before realizing the error outside VFR; and ATC contacted and told him to climb immediately. Situation resolved with correct adjustment of altimeter and evasive action back up to traffic pattern altitude (800 feet). Student and I had a debriefing on the ground about the incident. There we discussed possible ways to avoid staring at the instruments too long; reasons and ways of learning the correct altimeter setting; ways of being prepared for any situation prior to entering the airspace; and single-pilot resource management.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: A flight instructor describes an incident that occurred while his student was on a solo cross country. The student became distracted while looking at the airport diagram and descended from pattern altitude to 150 feet AGL before the error is detected.
Narrative: My student went up for a solo cross country with the departure airport takeoff beginning at around noon. Approaching the second airport my student was asked to 'follow the shoreline and report 5 miles out.' My student became flustered with the new command and pulled out airport diagram to evaluate the new situation and became distracted. To worsen the situation; my student had also set the wrong altimeter setting in his flight instruments so altitude was off. Slowly he began a descent down to 100 feet - 150 AGL before realizing the error outside VFR; and ATC contacted and told him to climb immediately. Situation resolved with correct adjustment of altimeter and evasive action back up to Traffic Pattern altitude (800 feet). Student and I had a debriefing on the ground about the incident. There we discussed possible ways to avoid staring at the instruments too long; reasons and ways of learning the correct altimeter setting; ways of being prepared for any situation PRIOR TO entering the airspace; and single-pilot resource management.
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.