A pilot in the busy; hazy rnt VFR traffic pattern became distracted while concentrating on following...

Narrative:

I was distracted in hazy conditions; having been instructed to follow the aircraft in front of me on downwind. There had been multiple aircraft in the pattern; so I intended to keep a tight approach; but then I extended my pattern to follow the airplane in front of me. I began my descent into the airport on downwind. As I turned base; I looked out the side window and I realized that I had descended too much and was passing over dense housing below at around 200 feet AGL (could have even been less). It was very close to the ground and I was just turning base. I was not aware that I was so close to the ground. I should have been about 700 feet AGL at that point. I added power and climbed back onto the appropriate altitude for the base leg; and completed the landing normally.the primary cause of this incident was my fixation on contradictory plans: to follow the airplane in front of me; but also to fly a tight pattern. This fixation led to a loss of total situational awareness; including altitude above ground and terrain obstructions. Contributing factor was the haze; which made it more difficult to track the airplane to follow and my relation to the runway; as well as my perception of the airport being busy; which made me want to 'get down and out of the way' for other airplanes.corrective actions are to maintain an appropriate scan during all phases of flight; and in high workload visual landings; or when following other traffic; not to begin a descent from traffic pattern altitude until the runway is in sight (turning base) rather than descending on downwind.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A pilot in the busy; hazy RNT VFR traffic pattern became distracted while concentrating on following traffic and descended to about 200 feet AGL turning base.

Narrative: I was distracted in hazy conditions; having been instructed to follow the aircraft in front of me on downwind. There had been multiple aircraft in the pattern; so I intended to keep a tight approach; but then I extended my pattern to follow the airplane in front of me. I began my descent into the airport on downwind. As I turned base; I looked out the side window and I realized that I had descended too much and was passing over dense housing below at around 200 feet AGL (could have even been less). It was very close to the ground and I was just turning base. I was not aware that I was so close to the ground. I should have been about 700 feet AGL at that point. I added power and climbed back onto the appropriate altitude for the base leg; and completed the landing normally.The primary cause of this incident was my fixation on contradictory plans: to follow the airplane in front of me; but also to fly a tight pattern. This fixation led to a loss of total situational awareness; including altitude above ground and terrain obstructions. Contributing factor was the haze; which made it more difficult to track the airplane to follow and my relation to the runway; as well as my perception of the airport being busy; which made me want to 'get down and out of the way' for other airplanes.Corrective actions are to maintain an appropriate scan during all phases of flight; and in high workload visual landings; or when following other traffic; not to begin a descent from traffic pattern altitude until the runway is in sight (turning base) rather than descending on downwind.

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	1263185
Time
Date	201505
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	RNT.Airport
State Reference	WA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Small Aircraft High Wing 1 Eng Fixed Gear
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Final Approach Initial Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	None
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 16 Flight Crew Total 320 Flight Crew Type 271
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Clearance Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach

A pilot in the busy; hazy rnt VFR traffic pattern became distracted while concentrating on following traffic and descended to about 200 feet AGL turning base.