Narrative:

After completing touch-and-go; we made left traffic for runway xy. Upon turning downwind at approximately 1;200 feet MSL; I smelled a burning smell from the cockpit. After verifying that my student also smelled the same; I looked down and saw smoke rising from under the instrument panel. I took the controls from my student and informed tower that we required a landing with immediate shut off due to smoke in the cockpit. I later learned that tower then [raised] alert level 2 for us. Upon taxiing off of the runway; we shut down the aircraft and exited. I communicated with tower on my handheld radio. In my opinion; there were no mistakes made by myself or my student. The situation could not have been avoided.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A flight instructor reported that during an instructional flight in a C152; crew detected smoke coming from under the instrument panel. Instructor took control and landed immediately.

Narrative: After completing Touch-and-Go; we made left traffic for Runway XY. Upon turning downwind at approximately 1;200 feet MSL; I smelled a burning smell from the cockpit. After verifying that my student also smelled the same; I looked down and saw smoke rising from under the instrument panel. I took the controls from my student and informed Tower that we required a landing with immediate shut off due to smoke in the cockpit. I later learned that Tower then [raised] Alert level 2 for us. Upon taxiing off of the runway; we shut down the aircraft and exited. I communicated with Tower on my handheld radio. In my opinion; there were no mistakes made by myself or my student. The situation could not have been avoided.

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.