Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Conflict Airborne Conflict; Deviation - Altitude Overshoot; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; Flight Crew FLC complied w / Automation / Advisory; Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Procedure; Human Factors; Airport
On approach; visual to Runway 27L; we were vectored onto final and cleared for the visual. The aircraft began to capture the localizer course in white needles; so I switched to green needles and selected Approach again. The Approach did not seem to properly capture the localizer in green needles (though it may have). My Flight Director (FD) seemed to be working; but the Captain's was indicating something different from my FD. To avoid going through the localizer course; the Captain told me to hand fly; so I turned off the Autopilot and began to hand fly. As I started to hand fly; I got a 'TRAFFIC ALERT' (yellow TA) for the aircraft on final adjacent to us. So as not to get an RA; I stayed left of the localizer and began to slowly rejoin the localizer. At this point; we were roughly 3-5 miles from the Final Approach Fix.As I began to descend and join the localizer; I got another TA; which turned into an RA; which instructed me to reduce my rate of descent. I complied and the RA went away. I continued my descent while visually monitoring the aircraft on final to my right. I was probably around 2800-3200 just outside of the FAF when I got another RA. I complied with the RA; and the Captain and I briefly discussed what we should do. We decided we should execute a go-around. We notified Tower and executed a go-around. The Go-around instructions were to climb to 3000 and turn left heading 170. I began to comply with this and climbed to approximately 3;800 when my Captain told me to descend back to 3000 (I may have already been above 3000; but heard 'climb to 3000' and knew I was executing a go-around so I switched into 'GO AROUND' mode mentally and started a climb). During the process of monitoring the aircraft to my right; and complying with the RAs; I lost some Situational Awareness and I did not realize I was pretty much at 3000 feet already. ATC did not say anything to us about our altitude; as we corrected the altitude right away and continued to comply with ATC instructions. We came back around and completed a visual approach to 27L with no problem. Be aware that Situational Awareness (SA) can be lessened because of the reasons that may cause you to do a go-around. We were both somewhat confused about why we kept getting the RA; and were so focused on complying with the RA and avoiding the traffic that I didn't realize we were exceeding the 3000 feet clearance.
CRJ-200 First Officer reported briefly exceeding the assigned altitude during a go-around; and attributed the deviation to lessened situational awareness.