TRACON Controller reported an aircraft descended below their assigned altitude resulting in the aircraft flying towards terrain. ATC canceled the approach clearance; climbed and vectored the aircraft back to the final approach course and they landed safely at their destination.

2025-03 · NASA ASRS report 2218503

Date: 2025-03 · Aircraft: A320 · Phase: approach

Anomalies: atc-issue-all-types|deviation-altitude-excursion-from-assigned-altitude|deviation-altitude-overshoot|deviation-track-heading-all-types|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-clearance|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-published-material-policy|inflight-event-encounter-cftt-cfit

Synopsis

TRACON Controller reported an aircraft descended below their assigned altitude resulting in the aircraft flying towards terrain. ATC canceled the approach clearance; climbed and vectored the aircraft back to the final approach course and they landed safely at their destination.

Narrative

Aircraft X was inbound from the west given vectors to final for the ILS at ZZZ. The pilots kept asking for lower. Controller had them at an appropriate altitude for the area they were in. As they were vectored on to final the aircraft started descending below the assigned altitude and eventually went down to 010 MSL about 8-9 mile final before the approach clearance was cancelled. Pilot insisted on continuing but upon further examination aircraft was also left of course and vectored to the east for another attempt. Readback all seemed clear; there was a possible language barrier as well with some accent on the pilots part. This all came less than 2 hours after receiving simulator training on Low altitude alert phraseology for both Controllers. Aircraft X was eventually re-sequenced without further issue into ZZZ. Pilot also asked for the weather information which was not available due to the constant issue of not having the weather populate correctly on the system; ZZZ is also not an adapted weather site in the system. ZZZ1 weather was issued to the pilots. Recommendation: No changes. the refresher training I do believe helped although the phraseology not issued properly. made the Controller aware of the possibility of the aircraft descending below a given altitude. Honestly; perfect timing of the simulator training!

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.

Loading the flight search…

Frequently asked questions

How do I search flights by aircraft type on FlightFinder?

Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.

Which aircraft types can I filter by?

We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.

Is FlightFinder free to use?

Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.

Where does the route data come from?

Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.