<< >> NASA ASRS Report 1625447, March 2019

Slc tower controller reported being distracted talking to their trainee and issued a late minimum safe altitude alert to an aircraft on approach.

Attributes
ACN	1625447
Time
Date	201903
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	SLC.Tower
State Reference	UT
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Small Transport
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Local Instructor
Qualification	Air Traffic Control Fully Certified
Experience	Air Traffic Control Time Certified In Pos 1 (yrs) 4.0
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT

Narrative:

I was conducting training on local east and aircraft X was on the approach in IMC conditions. I was concerned about their speed as they were faster than a previous arrival and that was a factor with the staggered spacing we needed. It appeared aircraft X was also descending rapidly and I was going to have the trainee ask aircraft X to verify their altitude when he was done asking a question. Before that could be accomplished the MSAW (minimum safe altitude warning) activated and I had the trainee issue a safety alert. Aircraft X then shallowed their descent and landed.in hindsight I should have communicated with aircraft X earlier about their altitude. We were discussing the speed issue primarily and that back and forth took too long. Both the speed and altitude were of importance.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: SLC Tower Controller reported being distracted talking to their trainee and issued a late Minimum Safe Altitude alert to an aircraft on approach.

Narrative: I was conducting training on local east and Aircraft X was on the approach in IMC conditions. I was concerned about their speed as they were faster than a previous arrival and that was a factor with the staggered spacing we needed. It appeared Aircraft X was also descending rapidly and I was going to have the Trainee ask Aircraft X to verify their altitude when he was done asking a question. Before that could be accomplished the MSAW (Minimum Safe Altitude Warning) activated and I had the Trainee issue a safety alert. Aircraft X then shallowed their descent and landed.In hindsight I should have communicated with Aircraft X earlier about their altitude. We were discussing the speed issue primarily and that back and forth took too long. Both the speed and altitude were of importance.

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.