Narrative:

On our descent at about 19;000 ft we had the master warning light come on with no bell sound. It extinguished itself immediately (just a quick on and off). At 13;000 ft I smelled a burning smell. I asked the captain if he smelled the burning smell; initially he said no but a few seconds later he said that he does smell it. The smell was becoming more and more defined and smelled like wires burning (could have been from the overhead panel). I decided to declare an emergency and get priority handling and land as soon as possible. We could smell the burning smell all the way down to a lending. We landed with no incidents. We had the emergency equipment follow us all the way to the parking. After shutting down the engines we went back to open the door. The passengers told us that they smelled a burning smell earlier in the flight; but they did not say anything to us about that until now!!! The passengers left and the captain went to call maintenance to come and check the airplane out; while I talked to the fire department and filed them in on the situation. The fire department went on the airplane to make sure it was safe; they said that they could smell a burning wires smell and that I made the right call declaring this as an emergency. In the same time; I contacted [the company] and filled them in on the situation as well.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Hawker 850XP First Officer experiences a master warning light during descent; with no other indications; that quickly extinguishes itself. At 13;000 FT an electrical burning smell is detected and an emergency is declared for an expedited landing at the destination airport.

Narrative: On our descent at about 19;000 FT we had the master warning light come ON with no bell sound. It extinguished itself immediately (just a quick on and off). At 13;000 FT I smelled a burning smell. I asked the Captain if he smelled the burning smell; initially he said no but a few seconds later he said that he does smell it. The smell was becoming more and more defined and smelled like wires burning (could have been from the overhead panel). I decided to declare an emergency and get priority handling and land as soon as possible. We could smell the burning smell all the way down to a lending. We landed with no incidents. We had the emergency equipment follow us all the way to the parking. After shutting down the engines we went back to open the door. The passengers told us that they smelled a burning smell earlier in the flight; but they did not say anything to us about that until now!!! The passengers left and the Captain went to call Maintenance to come and check the airplane out; while I talked to the Fire Department and filed them in on the situation. The Fire Department went on the airplane to make sure it was safe; they said that they could smell a burning wires smell and that I made the right call declaring this as an emergency. In the same time; I contacted [the company] and filled them in on the situation as well.

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.