PA-28 Cherokee/Archer/Dakota/Pillan/Warrior
Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification
Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors; Weather
Instrument Training; Non-precision approaches; LOC intro. Student pilot lost situational awareness when descending to MDA from step down fix on the ILS/LOC 10R FPR approach: Instead of leveling off at 380 ft he descended steeply to almost 150 ft needing the instructor pilot to take the controls and recover safe flight path in order to prevent an imminent crash on short final. There was an unexpected broken cloud layer at about 300 ft that permitted to spot the runway intermittently (at times in sight; no visual cues other times). The student did very well shooting a previous approach though having the same type of unexpected weather; the difference was that we stayed above the clouds at all times watching the layer from atop whereas in the LOC we were flying through the clouds and close to the ground. First encounter with IMC by student pilot.To encourage pilots to follow school rules on wx minima to conduct a flight and to have a contingency plan in case unforeseen wx becomes an issue.
PA-28 instructor pilot reported his student descended steeply to 150 feet AGL during a practice non-precision instrument approach in IMC conditions.