PA-42 Cheyenne IV/400/400LS
Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Private; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 60; Flight Crew Total 12250; Flight Crew Type 2500
Confusion; Workload; Distraction; Human-Machine Interface; Situational Awareness
Deviation - Track / Heading All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors
After picking up my flight plan from clearance I entered it into my Garmin 530 but it would not take the RUUDY 4  SID in a pre-stored flight plan. I would have to plug that in after I activated that stored flight plan. I activated my pre-stored flight plan and had a normal takeoff from TEB. After takeoff I activated the autopilot and climbed to 1;500 FT on a 240 degree heading as instructed by the RUUDY 4 SID. I switched from TEB Tower to the Departure Controller. A couple of minutes later I noticed I was headed toward EWR and knowing that was not correct I disabled the autopilot. I was hand flying in some light turbulence while trying to establish what went wrong. I figured out I had not entered the SID in the flight plan before takeoff and was looking at the SID on my iPad to determine what correction I needed to make. The airspace is tight in that area and the Departure Controller told me to turn immediately right to 320. He said 'there was a possible loss of separation' with some traffic that was landing in TEB on a different runway. I never saw the other aircraft and he did not say how far away I was. The time between when I realized I was in the wrong place to the Controller vectoring me to 320 was a couple of minutes. As I said the airspace is very tight in that area. The problem arose from my confidence in the pre-stored flight plan that I had not amended after activation. A contributing factor may have been the workload. I normally have a second pilot who could not fly this leg and my workload increased as a result. I didn't seem overload until I realized I was not on the RUUDY 4 SID. Then things got very busy while I hand flew in light turbulence while trying to examine the SID and deal with the controllers. It was discovered when I saw I was headed for Newark and that didn't seem right. As a corrective action I will make certain my SID is entered into the active flight plan after activating a pre-stored flight plan. I wish I could say this was an equipment malfunction but I failed to enter the SID after activating the pre-stored flight plan. Maybe unconsciously I thought I had the flight plan covered because I had pre-stored it before loading passengers. I had 8 hours of sleep the night before was not fatigued and didn't feel overloaded until I realized I was in the wrong place.
A single pilot departed on the TEB RUUDY 4 but failed to program the Garmin 530 to include the Departure and had a track deviation which ATC corrected with a vector away from conflicting traffic.