Distracted while searching for his destination airport at the end of a long IFR cross country the pi...

Narrative:

I was on an IFR flight plan in VMC conditions in the descent to my destination airport with my wife and 2 children onboard. Madison approach gave me clearance to descend to 3;200 ft MSL. It was clear skies with calm winds in the area. I descended below my cleared altitude to approximately 2;600 ft MSL; when madison approach called me with a low altitude alert. I immediately cancelled my IFR clearance and continued descending VFR. At that time I was approximately 1;600 ft AGL over a flat land area. I was not in any danger of hitting any terrain or obstacles at that time. I was distracted with looking for the airport and any possible traffic in the area; therefore I lost track of maintaining my assigned altitude. Other factors that affected my altitude deviation was the excitement of our arrival after a long flight through some rough weather to our destination; where we would be surprising family members that we had not seen for a long while. This reminds me to not be complacent about my duties as the PIC and to not let emotions or other outside factors affect my scan of the cockpit instruments.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Distracted while searching for his destination airport at the end of a long IFR cross country the pilot of a BE55 descended 600 FT below his cleared altitude before being alerted by ATC.

Narrative: I was on an IFR flight plan in VMC conditions in the descent to my destination airport with my wife and 2 children onboard. Madison Approach gave me clearance to descend to 3;200 FT MSL. It was clear skies with calm winds in the area. I descended below my cleared altitude to approximately 2;600 FT MSL; when Madison Approach called me with a low altitude alert. I immediately cancelled my IFR clearance and continued descending VFR. At that time I was approximately 1;600 FT AGL over a flat land area. I was not in any danger of hitting any terrain or obstacles at that time. I was distracted with looking for the airport and any possible traffic in the area; therefore I lost track of maintaining my assigned altitude. Other factors that affected my altitude deviation was the excitement of our arrival after a long flight through some rough weather to our destination; where we would be surprising family members that we had not seen for a long while. This reminds me to not be complacent about my duties as the PIC and to not let emotions or other outside factors affect my scan of the cockpit instruments.

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.

Attributes
ACN	1160880
Time
Date	201403
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	DLL.Airport
State Reference	WI
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Baron 55/Cochise
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Descent
Route In Use	Direct
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot Captain Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Multiengine
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 85 Flight Crew Total 5500 Flight Crew Type 150
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Altitude Overshoot Deviation - Procedural Clearance Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT

Distracted while searching for his destination airport at the end of a long IFR cross country the pilot of a BE55 descended 600 ft below his cleared altitude before being alerted by ATC.