Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50; Flight Crew Total 1200; Flight Crew Type 500
Situational Awareness; Communication Breakdown
Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude; Deviation - Track / Heading All Types
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Returned To Clearance
Human Factors
I was with a new instrument student on his first ever IFR cross country; and he was really struggling with a lot of stuff; and as I was helping him set up the approach at night ATC told us to maintain 3;000 until established on the ILS. I was walking my student through setting up for the approach and I looked down at my plates and the Garmin 430 GPS and then I glanced at the altimeter and noticed we were [at] 2;700 FT. As I told him to get his altitude back; ATC kind of yelled at us for being below 3;000 FT and not established on the approach. Then after doing a stop and go the Tower told us we were cleared back to our home airport up to 4;000 and as filed (which was GPS direct). We started flying direct and Tower told us to contact Center. When we went back to that Controller he was upset with us that we weren't flying the published missed; but the Tower Controller never mentioned anything about flying the missed; and had cleared us as filed (which was via direct).
DA20 instrument flight instructor reports an altitude deviation by his student on vectors for an ILS; which is detected by ATC. After a stop and go; the Tower clears the training flight back to home base as filed (direct). This upsets the original Approach Controller who had been expecting the published missed approach initially.