The pilot of a single engine beechcraft reported receiving a low altitude alert from ATC during a vi...

Attributes
ACN	1326831
Time
Date	201601
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	MRY.Airport
State Reference	CA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Beechcraft Single Piston Undifferentiated or Other Model
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 54 Flight Crew Total 290 Flight Crew Type 180
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT
Miss Distance	Vertical 500

Narrative:

I was approaching my first visit to mry on an instrument flight plan at night. The metar indicated VMC; however as most of the 2 hour flight was above an under cast; I had been focusing on the ILS 10 approach with circle to land based on winds. I spotted the beacon about 10 miles away at my 2 o'clock and was cleared for the visual.when I switched to tower they offered runway 10 with calm winds; but as I had the circle to land in my head and had the airport in sight I said I would stick with 28 and turned on a 45 for the downwind. I was so focused on the possible instrument approaches I would shoot upon arrival that I did not study well enough the visual approach issues such as the high terrain to the west and the 1;000 feet AGL pattern altitude. Tower called low altitude alert to me as I started seeing terrain indications on my ipad and I took immediate evasive maneuvers by adding throttle and stopping my descent. I was flying over a dark hill and did not have a visual reference as to my low altitude. As a new instrument pilot I need to be more aware of the obstacles around the airport even if they are not on an approach or missed approach segment.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The pilot of a single engine Beechcraft reported receiving a low altitude alert from ATC during a visual approach in MRY due to lack of familiarity with the area and distraction by the anticipated weather conditions.

Narrative: I was approaching my first visit to MRY on an instrument flight plan at night. The METAR indicated VMC; however as most of the 2 hour flight was above an under cast; I had been focusing on the ILS 10 approach with circle to land based on winds. I spotted the beacon about 10 miles away at my 2 o'clock and was cleared for the visual.When I switched to Tower they offered Runway 10 with calm winds; but as I had the circle to land in my head and had the airport in sight I said I would stick with 28 and turned on a 45 for the downwind. I was so focused on the possible instrument approaches I would shoot upon arrival that I did not study well enough the visual approach issues such as the high terrain to the west and the 1;000 feet AGL pattern altitude. Tower called low altitude alert to me as I started seeing terrain indications on my iPad and I took immediate evasive maneuvers by adding throttle and stopping my descent. I was flying over a dark hill and did not have a visual reference as to my low altitude. As a new instrument pilot I need to be more aware of the obstacles around the airport even if they are not on an approach or missed approach segment.

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.

The pilot of a single engine beechcraft reported receiving a low altitude alert from ATC during a visual approach in mry due to lack of familiarity with the area and distraction by the anticipated weather conditions.