Surface tracking in AUTO mode

I am flying Ardupilot-4.4.4 in SITL by enabling the following parameters in Auto mode. After reaching certain point in the plan, it got automatically crashed by reducing the altitude and hitting ground, as there is a terrain there. Currently, I am using SITL Rangefinder and want to use Surface tracking mode. I am not using Terrain data. Hence, I feel Surface tracking is not working in AUTO mode. is there any way to achieve this?

However, the surface tracking works good in LOITER mode.

EK3_SRC1_POSZ - BARO
EK3_SRC2_POSZ - GPS
EK3_SRC1_POSZ - GPS
SURFTRAK_MODE - 1

Log file attached below