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A pilot enroute to hfd encountered deteriorating VFR weather; but continued to descend below the overcast and was able to land VFR.
| Attributes | |
| ACN | 1280024 |
| Time | |
| Date | 201507 |
| Local Time Of Day | 1801-2400 |
| Place | |
| Locale Reference | Y90.TRACON |
| State Reference | CT |
| Environment | |
| Flight Conditions | Marginal |
| Light | Daylight |
| Aircraft 1 | |
| Make Model Name | Small Aircraft |
| Operating Under FAR Part | Part 91 |
| Flight Phase | Descent |
| Route In Use | Visual Approach |
| Flight Plan | None |
| Person 1 | |
| Function | Single Pilot |
| Qualification | Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Private |
| Experience | Flight Crew Last 90 Days 43.2 Flight Crew Total 1450 Flight Crew Type 1450 |
| Events | |
| Anomaly | Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter VFR In IMC |
Narrative:
Returning on a business trip from kash in new hampshire to khfd in ct; opted to fly VFR with flight following as weather conditions indicated ceilings of 4;000 ft+ and the flight is fairly short; approximately 42 minutes in duration. Flew initially at 4;500 feet but then lowered to 3;000 feet as cloud ceilings began dropping as the flight got closer to the destination. Initially dropped to 3;000 feet when approximately 40 nautical miles from khfd.ceilings continued to drop as a light rain weather front was moving rapidly through the area; centered close to the destination airport at this time. Although flight conditions were not dangerous; the situation rapidly changed from VFR to marginal VFR and continued deteriorating. With the airport approximately 11 miles away; I descended to approximately 1;300 feet to maintain VFR and stay below the clouds which were at approximately 1;800-1;900 feet but continuing to lower. Landed without incident; but was barely ahead of total IFR conditions.in review; I should have communicated to the controller at kbdl that was tracking me via flight following that I could not easily maintain VFR conditions and asked for an IFR pop-up and taken an lda or VOR approach into khfd in order to eliminate any possibility of entering IFR conditions. I believe that due to the fact that the destination airport was within 15 minutes of my remaining flight time; I made a poor decision to continue dropping altitude instead of switching to an IFR flight for the remaining distance; in order to avoid the possible IFR conditions and maintain flight safety.
Original NASA ASRS Text
Title: A pilot enroute to HFD encountered deteriorating VFR weather; but continued to descend below the overcast and was able to land VFR.
Narrative: Returning on a business trip from KASH in New Hampshire to KHFD in CT; opted to fly VFR with Flight Following as weather conditions indicated ceilings of 4;000 ft+ and the flight is fairly short; approximately 42 minutes in duration. Flew initially at 4;500 feet but then lowered to 3;000 feet as cloud ceilings began dropping as the flight got closer to the destination. Initially dropped to 3;000 feet when approximately 40 nautical miles from KHFD.Ceilings continued to drop as a light rain weather front was moving rapidly through the area; centered close to the destination airport at this time. Although flight conditions were not dangerous; the situation rapidly changed from VFR to marginal VFR and continued deteriorating. With the airport approximately 11 miles away; I descended to approximately 1;300 feet to maintain VFR and stay below the clouds which were at approximately 1;800-1;900 feet but continuing to lower. Landed without incident; but was barely ahead of total IFR conditions.In review; I should have communicated to the controller at KBDL that was tracking me via flight following that I could not easily maintain VFR conditions and asked for an IFR pop-up and taken an LDA or VOR approach into KHFD in order to eliminate any possibility of entering IFR conditions. I believe that due to the fact that the destination airport was within 15 minutes of my remaining flight time; I made a poor decision to continue dropping altitude instead of switching to an IFR flight for the remaining distance; in order to avoid the possible IFR conditions and maintain flight safety.
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.