<< >> NASA ASRS Report 907757, September 2010

C210 pilot reports becoming distracted while looking for a small uncontrolled airport and allowing his altitude to drift down to 400 ft AGL.

Attributes
ACN	907757
Time
Date	201009
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Cessna 210 Centurion / Turbo Centurion 210C 210D
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Initial Approach
Route In Use	None
Flight Plan	VFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50 Flight Crew Total 1800 Flight Crew Type 1100
Events
Anomaly	Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT

Narrative:

Flying to small uncontrolled field very difficult to see even on a VFR day. Ended up flying by the airport and circled off to the west of the field into the afternoon sun. My altitude was decaying as I circled to the west by a few miles with a plan to circle back with the sun on my back to look again for the field. By the time I noticed my altitude after fooling around with the GPS to get a bearing on the field I was lower than I wished. Probably only 400 AGL. Not good. Put the power on and climbed circled around and back to the field. Landed without incident. Lesson learned. Should have used the autopilot as I fooled with the GPS. Would have assisted me in not getting so low. A little more outside the cockpit attention this low would have helped further in preventing this low altitude condition.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: C210 pilot reports becoming distracted while looking for a small uncontrolled airport and allowing his altitude to drift down to 400 FT AGL.

Narrative: Flying to small uncontrolled field very difficult to see even on a VFR day. Ended up flying by the airport and circled off to the west of the field into the afternoon sun. My altitude was decaying as I circled to the west by a few miles with a plan to circle back with the sun on my back to look again for the field. By the time I noticed my altitude after fooling around with the GPS to get a bearing on the field I was lower than I wished. Probably only 400 AGL. Not good. Put the power on and climbed circled around and back to the field. Landed without incident. Lesson learned. Should have used the autopilot as I fooled with the GPS. Would have assisted me in not getting so low. A little more outside the cockpit attention this low would have helped further in preventing this low altitude condition.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.