Narrative:

I was flying as a safety pilot with a friend who was at the outside edge of his instrument currency; needing approaches before six month currency lapsed at the end of the month. I learned as we were departing that he had filed IFR even though the entire flight was in VMC. On a VOR approach; I was looking outside the aircraft for conflicts and obstacles; and failed to notice that he was continuing to descend below the minimum decision altitude for the approach. The tower called a low altitude alert. I believe I was properly acting as safety pilot with a primary focus outside the aircraft; and would have also noticed momentarily if we descended so low for obstacle clearance from my visual perspective to become a concern.following that approach; we did an ILS approach to a full stop. He descended to da; and then I recognized continued to descend too low; with the descent rate increasing. Not realizing what had occurred; I twice shouted for him to climb; but got no response. I applied full throttle and initiated a climb; before looking back to him. He was wearing a hood that he had borrowed from me; and to which he was not accustomed (typically wearing foggles); and; in attempting to remove the hood at da to land; became tangled; and also inadvertently removed his headset; becoming momentarily disoriented and also not able to hear me. I encouraged a go-around; but; by then he was in control of the plane and recovered to a safe; if long; landing. I am conflicted as to whether I think I could have handled that situation differently; as I needed to focus outside the cockpit; but; in so doing; failed to notice the unusual and sudden problem inside the cockpit; I think in replaying this mentally; next time I would have intervened even more quickly (not waiting longer for a response to my initial climb command) and I would have been more forceful in calling for a go-around; but he had resumed full command of the aircraft and no longer had a view limiting device. I believe both of these lessons suggest there could be value in incorporating some amount of crew training in private pilot training; because; while we rarely act as more than a one person crew; there are times that we do need to work with another pilot to do so.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: DA40 safety pilot reported the flying pilot twice descended below the charted altitude on practice approaches.

Narrative: I was flying as a safety pilot with a friend who was at the outside edge of his instrument currency; needing approaches before six month currency lapsed at the end of the month. I learned as we were departing that he had filed IFR even though the entire flight was in VMC. On a VOR approach; I was looking outside the aircraft for conflicts and obstacles; and failed to notice that he was continuing to descend below the Minimum Decision Altitude for the approach. The tower called a low altitude alert. I believe I was properly acting as safety pilot with a primary focus outside the aircraft; and would have also noticed momentarily if we descended so low for obstacle clearance from my visual perspective to become a concern.Following that approach; we did an ILS approach to a full stop. He descended to DA; and then I recognized continued to descend too low; with the descent rate increasing. Not realizing what had occurred; I twice shouted for him to climb; but got no response. I applied full throttle and initiated a climb; before looking back to him. He was wearing a hood that he had borrowed from me; and to which he was not accustomed (typically wearing foggles); and; in attempting to remove the hood at DA to land; became tangled; and also inadvertently removed his headset; becoming momentarily disoriented and also not able to hear me. I encouraged a go-around; but; by then he was in control of the plane and recovered to a safe; if long; landing. I am conflicted as to whether I think I could have handled that situation differently; as I needed to focus outside the cockpit; but; in so doing; failed to notice the unusual and sudden problem inside the cockpit; I think in replaying this mentally; next time I would have intervened even more quickly (not waiting longer for a response to my initial climb command) and I would have been more forceful in calling for a go-around; but he had resumed full command of the aircraft and no longer had a view limiting device. I believe both of these lessons suggest there could be value in incorporating some amount of crew training in private pilot training; because; while we rarely act as more than a one person crew; there are times that we do need to work with another pilot to do so.

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.