Accident Details
On November 29, 2011, about 1900 mountain standard time, a Piper PA-32RT-300T, registration N36824, impacted terrain during controlled flight approximately one mile east of Friedman Memorial Airport in Hailey, Idaho. The pilot sustained minor injuries, the passenger received serious injuries, and the airplane sustained substantial damage. The aircraft was owned and operated by the pilot. The flight was conducted under 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 as a personal transportation flight, having just departed Hailey for Nampa, Idaho. Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan had been filed.
Pilot Actions
The pilot reported that he had planned to depart while it was still light, but a delay in his passenger’s activities resulted in a takeoff after dark. Before departure, he programmed the entire route from Hailey through the instrument approach into Nampa on his panel-mount GNS480 GPS and set up his yoke-mounted GPSMAP496 as a backup. His plan was to engage the autopilot soon after takeoff to maintain heading in the narrow valley south of the airport and to track the preset route. After listening to the Automatic Terminal Information Service, he initiated a southbound takeoff in good visibility with a tailwind of about 7 knots on what he characterized as a dark night.
After liftoff, due to the airplane’s light weight (two occupants) and higher performance from cold ambient air temperature, the airplane climbed rapidly with a nose-high pitch attitude. This caused the pilot to lose direct visual reference with the runway lights before reaching the departure end. Once he lost sight of the runway environment, he transferred his attention to the airplane’s instrument panel. During that process, he attempted to engage the autopilot but it did not engage on the first attempt; he then went through the activation procedure a second time. As he was completing that, the Hailey Tower controller asked if he was turning downwind. Simultaneously, the GPSMAP496 terrain warning sounded. The pilot realized that while focused on engaging the autopilot, the airplane had turned from its original heading and was heading east toward rising terrain. Seeing the terrain, he concluded he could not avoid it, so he slowed to about 65 knots and maneuvered toward comparatively level ground, executing a controlled crash on the snow-covered hillside.
Post-Accident Investigation
Because the pilot was uncertain whether the autopilot system had a malfunction or if he had not fully engaged the switch, the NTSB Investigator-In-Charge arranged for several airplane components to be removed and tested at Century Flight Systems in Mineral Wells, Texas. The components tested were: flight computer (s/n 2178G), attitude gyro (s/n T72374M), directional gyro (s/n A6156G), roll servo (s/n 1501), and pitch servo (s/n 1511). Testing revealed that impact damage prevented the attitude gyro from erecting after spin-up, and impact damage to two male electrical connector pins on the directional gyro resulted in no electrical output to the test screen. All other components showed normal, in-specification results, and no preimpact anomalies were found that would have prevented autopilot engagement.
Pilot Recommendations
In the recommendations section of the NTSB Form 6120.1, the pilot made two suggestions: (1) Do not depart an airport in mountainous areas when single pilot and mountainous terrain is within 5 nautical miles of the airport; (2) Do not troubleshoot discrepancies within 5 nautical miles of terrain; instead treat any discrepancy as an inoperable item.