2011-02 · NASA ASRS report 934722
A BE55 Pilot reported not leveling at 1500 FT on the TEB RUUDY 2 departure. Other aircraft he flies have an altitude alerter but this aircraft did not.
I was flying the RUUDY 2 departure from TEB and climbed above the 1500 foot restriction on climb out just prior to WENTZ waypoint. I was climbing toward 2000 FT when the Departure Controller told me I was higher than 1500 feet; so I immediately descended from about 1800-1900 FT down to 1500 FT. No traffic alerts on my traffic advisory system on board; no traffic sighted; and no traffic called out by the Departure Controller. I had flown this Departure previously and been given early deviations to assigned altitudes from these Controllers and was half expecting them to give me a more direct low altitude departure with waypoints off the Departure procedure and more onto my routing. It was VMC and I believe no traffic conflict existed at that time; however I now know that the airspace immediately above the RUUDY 2 departure is used by aircraft approaching EWR. I have made 3x5 cards with the waypoints and call-outs and altitudes for the RUUDY 2 Departure for my use in the future. I have been on that departure before and been given earlier altitudes and vectors more direct to my flight plan; etc. The aircraft I was flying does not have altitude preselect on the flight director/autopilot and so since I wasn't in the King Air or Citation I usually fly. I erred by not controlling the altitude function manually. It won't happen again. I often bring along a second 'Safety Pilot' when flying in and out of busy east coast airspace like DCA or NYC but on this trip it was a Friday early afternoon in good weather and I knew it would be light traffic in and out of TEB.
Flying the RUUDY 2 SID. I was to climb to 1;500 FT and maintain that altitude until the next waypoint; then climb higher. I climbed above 1;500 FT and was called by Departure at approximately 1;800-1;900 FT. I immediately descended to 1;500 FT and resumed the departure.No TAS/TCAS alert in my cockpit or seen or call-outs from ATC. [It was] VMC [and] no traffic issues. I usually fly aircraft with altitude pre-selects on the autopilot and was not familiar enough with the TEB departure. A clearer departure print in the book would have helped. A second pilot flying such busy airspace would have helped. I've made 3x5 cards for this departure for myself.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.