Date: 201701
Local time of day: 1801-2400
Location: BTR.Airport, LA
Flight conditions: VMC
Light: Night
Aircraft: Regional Jet 200 ER/LR (CRJ200)
Operating under: Part 121
Flight plan: IFR
Mission: Passenger
Flight phase: Initial Approach
Airspace: Class C BTR
ATC / advisory: Tower BTR
Reporter organization: Air Carrier
Reporter function: Pilot Flying; Captain
Reporter qualification: Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Human factors: Situational Awareness
Anomaly: Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Unstabilized Approach
Detector: Person Flight Crew
When detected: In-flight
Result: Flight Crew Became Reoriented
Contributing factors: Human Factors
Primary problem: Human Factors

Narrative: When cleared for a visual approach into BTR I lined up on a downwind for 4L. At different times we each mentioned that we had the field in sight; but I later lost contact with the field and overly relied on the 5 nm ring I built on the fix page. Having lost the field visually I spun the heading bug towards a base-leg and proceeded to gaze out the window to acquire the airport. During this time; the airplane started to turn towards final and after coaxing it back to base ineffectually I realized I was too high and too fast to swing back to base-leg. During this time I had lost contact with the airport in the sea of lights nearby. I disabled the autopilot after calling for gear and flaps 30. In the situation I neglected to call for flaps 45 and instead became consumed with the approach and trying to correct for the situation before 1;000ft AGL. In the end I lost track of where 1;000ft was and I continued with my visual with the Pilot monitoring (PM) calling out deviations until he set flaps 45 at which point the airplane flew as expected and landed uneventfully.We each re-aquired the field; recognized the situation at different times and I continued but it was not a stable approach.I lost track of the field after we each had seen it. Since it was on my side I continued using the moving-map zoomed way-in to vector myself to the final from downwind to base to final. I spun in altitude and heading for a downwind; 2;000ft and a 90deg base at about 4NM; so I had thought; but the heading bug slewed closer than intended as I looked away. I lost track of the field at the time I had set the heading bug and the PM inquired what the heading bug was doing. I had tried to correct an over-steer and the airplane was still turning away from the heading bug. I finally disabled automation and with the field in sight; I identified that I was high and fast; I called for gear and flaps 30. Whether or not I called for flaps 45; I continued trying my best to correct by diving toward the 1000 ft mark and trying to calculate what that point was by memory from my briefing all; the while wondering why the PAPI was not available and why the aircraft was not in proper descent mode. Once the PM selected flaps 45 on his own the aircraft flew a familiar profile and I no longer needed the PAPI to help identify what the problem was. I had thought in my mind that I had called for the flaps to be 45 but I never did. Once I found the runway I dove towards it; then tried to figure out why 2;400 FPM descent was not correcting for being high and not slowing either. I was behind and trying to determine when 1;000 AGL was since I had the GPS min set in my altitude alerter. This occupied a part of my mind as I became increasingly uncomfortable with the profile of the descent. I started to add power to assume a stable descent at what I figured was 1;000ft but I was still high. Meanwhile the PM realized that I hadn't called flaps 45 and set them on his own. I felt I had the landing at that point and still fast I landed with a longer flare than usual and set it down long. I felt badly and floated a bit to a smooth and long landing; still making our turn-off with increasing braking as we went.I should have disabled automation sooner or gone around.




Synopsis: CRJ-200 Captain reported flying an unstabilized approach into BTR after losing situational awareness during the night visual approach.