Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Commercial
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 120; Flight Crew Total 5028; Flight Crew Type 289
Situational Awareness
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew FLC complied w / Automation / Advisory
Human Factors
On a visual approach to runway 19 at MKC; we were flying on a extended (wide) right base for runway 19 in a descent and were about to start leveling out when ATC (MKC Tower) gave us a minimum safe altitude warning (MSAW). Tower advised us to level out or climb and to check our altimeter setting to the local. I leveled the airplane and began a shallow climb while checking my altitude and surroundings. The altitude we were at wasn't too low for the local terrain. Nor was our altimeter setting off. The aircraft that was being flown is equipped with a terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS) that wasn't triggered at any point in the flight. We continued our approach; joined the visual glide path; and landed without incident. Later; after some research; I learned that MSAWs can be triggered based on descent rate. Our descent rate may have been high during the visual approach. In the future; I will do better to monitor and control my descent rate; especially in wide patterns to urban runways.
Pilot reported receiving a minimum safe altitude warning from ATC during a visual approach for landing.