C172 private pilot descended to 200 ft AGL; mistakenly thinking he was at traffic pattern altitude. ...

Narrative:

I was inbound to sln after 2.5 hours in the air. 20 miles out; with VFR flight following; I told the controller I was starting a descent to 1500FT. I checked my flight plan notes to see I had marked 1300FT as the traffic pattern altitude. I approached the airport from the west to make right traffic for runway 18. I had the beacon in sight; but as I neared my target altitude of 1500; I lost the beacon. I noticed I seemed closer to the ground than the 1000FT I had anticipated for the traffic pattern altitude. Salina tower called me and asked what my altitude was because they had lost sight of me. They estimated 200FT as my AGL height. I immediately added full power and climbed to the correct tpa of 2300FT and completed an uneventful landing. The factors leading to this unsafe altitude were a flight planning mistake and failure to adequately double check planned altitudes.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: C172 private pilot descended to 200 FT AGL; mistakenly thinking he was at traffic pattern altitude. Controller alerts the pilot they had lost sight of him; an immediate climb was initiated and an uneventful landing.

Narrative: I was inbound to SLN after 2.5 hours in the air. 20 miles out; with VFR flight following; I told the Controller I was starting a descent to 1500FT. I checked my flight plan notes to see I had marked 1300FT as the traffic pattern altitude. I approached the airport from the west to make right traffic for Runway 18. I had the beacon in sight; but as I neared my target altitude of 1500; I lost the beacon. I noticed I seemed closer to the ground than the 1000FT I had anticipated for the traffic pattern altitude. Salina Tower called me and asked what my altitude was because they had lost sight of me. They estimated 200FT as my AGL height. I immediately added full power and climbed to the correct TPA of 2300FT and completed an uneventful landing. The factors leading to this unsafe altitude were a flight planning mistake and failure to adequately double check planned altitudes.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.

Attributes
ACN	837758
Time
Date	200905
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	SLN.Airport
State Reference	KS
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	None
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 30 Flight Crew Total 130 Flight Crew Type 130
Events
Anomaly	Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT

C172 private pilot descended to 200 ft AGL; mistakenly thinking he was at traffic pattern altitude. Controller alerts the pilot they had lost sight of him; an immediate climb was initiated and an uneventful landing.