A fatigued captain on a long flight to zggg lost situational awareness and descended early when the ...

Attributes
ACN	870941
Time
Date	201001
Local Time Of Day	0001-0600
Place
Locale Reference	ZGGG.Airport
State Reference	FO
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Widebody Low Wing 2 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	Other ILS
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Approach Coupler
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 100 Flight Crew Total 4000 Flight Crew Type 105
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Track / Heading All Types Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT

Narrative:

I was the pilot not flying during approach into guangzhou; china. We were cleared to 3;000 ft and cleared for the ILS. When the localizer captured; the plane initially turned the wrong direction. The captain (pilot flying) made a manual heading correction and re-intercepted the ILS. After this; I was heads down performing the landing checklist when I heard a GPWS '1;000' callout. We were actually at about 2;500 ft MSL with an assigned altitude of 3;000 ft MSL. The '1;000' callout was likely due to terrain. I looked up to see that we had descended below the glidepath by about 500 ft. I realized that the captain had commanded an early descent. I querried him about this and he made a correction to stop the descent. About the same time; ATC called and asked us if we were on the glideslope...they seemed concerned about our altitude. After the flight the captain explained that he got behind when the jet initially turned the wrong way. That in conjunction with being tired caused him to misinterpret the instruments and gave him the perception that he had to descend to intercept the glide path when in fact we were still below and had not yet intercepted. We discussed the need to always confirm new altitudes. If the captain had verbalized what he was doing before he did it; that would have helped too. In the future; I will also try to minimize heads down time when performing checklist duties in order to provide a better back up for the pilot flying.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A fatigued Captain on a long flight to ZGGG lost situational awareness and descended early when the autopilot failed to capture the localizer and had to be disconnected. A GPWS altitude callout alerted the First Officer to the error.

Narrative: I was the pilot not flying during approach into Guangzhou; China. We were cleared to 3;000 FT and cleared for the ILS. When the localizer captured; the plane initially turned the wrong direction. The Captain (Pilot Flying) made a manual heading correction and re-intercepted the ILS. After this; I was heads down performing the landing checklist when I heard a GPWS '1;000' callout. We were actually at about 2;500 FT MSL with an assigned altitude of 3;000 FT MSL. The '1;000' callout was likely due to terrain. I looked up to see that we had descended below the glidepath by about 500 FT. I realized that the Captain had commanded an early descent. I querried him about this and he made a correction to stop the descent. About the same time; ATC called and asked us if we were on the glideslope...they seemed concerned about our altitude. After the flight the Captain explained that he got behind when the jet initially turned the wrong way. That in conjunction with being tired caused him to misinterpret the instruments and gave him the perception that he had to descend to intercept the glide path when in fact we were still below and had not yet intercepted. We discussed the need to always confirm new altitudes. If the Captain had verbalized what he was doing before he did it; that would have helped too. In the future; I will also try to minimize heads down time when performing checklist duties in order to provide a better back up for the pilot flying.

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.

A fatigued captain on a long flight to zggg lost situational awareness and descended early when the autopilot failed to capture the localizer and had to be disconnected. A GPWS altitude callout alerted the first officer to the error.