BE36 pilot is advised to check altitude during a night visual approach to runway 20 at hfd. The repo...

Narrative:

End of day five hour flight to hfd; night approach approximately 1 hour after sunset. Calm weather; cavu VFR conditions. I was cleared for the visual approach to hfd runway 20. I flew to what I thought was a base leg. Things look different at night; and I flew too far north of the field; losing visual contact with the field in behind the buildings and lights of the city of hartford. While trying to correct and configure for landings; I descended to approximately 800 ft MSL. Hartford tower called to confirm that I had field in sight. I reported affirmative. Hartford then called bradley approach; 'because they may be concerned; I'll check in for you;'(or words to that effect.) hartford tower confirmed that bradley had a 'low altitude' alarm on my aircraft and tower said that the flight was ok and cleared for landing. I proceeded to land without further incident. Contributing factors: 1) fatigue at end of day; with five hour flight after a day of meetings. 2) complacency about the approach; since I believed I knew the field well. Corrective measures: 1) more night flying practice with an instructor. 2) change night operations SOP to include over flight of field at pattern altitude on order to join downwind; base; and final without losing sight of the field.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: BE36 pilot is advised to check altitude during a night visual approach to Runway 20 at HFD. The reporter had descended to 800 FT MSL several miles to the northwest of the field.

Narrative: End of day five hour flight to HFD; night approach approximately 1 hour after sunset. Calm weather; CAVU VFR conditions. I was cleared for the visual approach to HFD Runway 20. I flew to what I thought was a base leg. Things look different at night; and I flew too far north of the field; losing visual contact with the field in behind the buildings and lights of the City of Hartford. While trying to correct and configure for landings; I descended to approximately 800 FT MSL. Hartford Tower called to confirm that I had field in sight. I reported affirmative. Hartford then called Bradley Approach; 'because they may be concerned; I'll check in for you;'(or words to that effect.) Hartford Tower confirmed that Bradley had a 'low altitude' alarm on my aircraft and Tower said that the flight was OK and cleared for landing. I proceeded to land without further incident. Contributing factors: 1) Fatigue at end of day; with five hour flight after a day of meetings. 2) Complacency about the approach; since I believed I knew the field well. Corrective measures: 1) More night flying practice with an instructor. 2) Change night operations SOP to include over flight of field at pattern altitude on order to join downwind; base; and final without losing sight of the field.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 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	1085711
Time
Date	201305
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	HFD.Airport
State Reference	CT
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Bonanza 36
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Initial Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 60 Flight Crew Total 590 Flight Crew Type 400
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT

BE36 pilot is advised to check altitude during a night visual approach to runway 20 at hfd. The reporter had descended to 800 ft MSL several miles to the northwest of the field.