PA-32 Cherokee Six/Lance/Saratoga/6X
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50; Flight Crew Total 505; Flight Crew Type 30
Confusion; Training / Qualification; Troubleshooting; Workload; Human-Machine Interface; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence; Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Requested ATC Assistance / Clarification; Flight Crew Regained Aircraft Control; Flight Crew Diverted
Weather; Human Factors
[The original narrative has been edited for brevity]Another instructor and I were asked to fly to Florida to pick up the owner of the airplane and bring him and his family home from vacation. The following event occurred on the return flight.We decided to depart knowing that most of the flight would be VFR but the last 100 NM would be in marginal conditions; therefore we planned on stopping prior to the marginal conditions. We left and flew all of Florida and most of Georgia in VMC. We decided to stop at an airport prior to the marginal conditions. Once at this airport; we refueled and obtained a telephone weather briefing. For the weather briefing; I had someone else call the briefer since I saw that the other person was qualified to receive a briefing. We spoke about the information the briefer gave him. We were told that the freezing level was from the surface and above. Our understanding was that other aircraft were not having problems with icing but were experiencing moderate turbulence. At this point; my mindset was that icing could happen but would not be an extreme hazard to us. Knowing this; I spoke with the owner of the airplane [our passenger]. I told him that as soon as we get any accumulation of icing; we would divert to an airport that was along our route and he agreed. We thus chose our route with that plan in mind. I did not perform the preflight but it was performed by another pilot. 30 minutes after departure; the weather became marginal and I avoided IMC while we got an IFR clearance from TRACON. Once we got the IFR clearance; we were cleared to climb to 7;000 to see if we could find VFR conditions but we didn't. During the climb; we started to notice icing. We climbed to 8;000 to find VFR but we were still IMC so we asked for and were cleared to 6;000. When at 6;000 I noticed that the airspeed was decreasing rapidly and I began to worry about the flight. For a little while; I thought we were losing the capability to generate lift from the aircraft due to the icing and by instinct I reacted by trying to regain airspeed by reducing the pitch of the aircraft to avoid a stall. At this point the other pilot suggested it was the pitot tube getting clogged by the ice which was the cause of the IAS decrease. I then noticed that our altitude was now 5;300 MSL which means that we had lost 700 FT. I immediately adjusted the airplane and maintained altitude for the remainder of the flight. While all of this was happening; the person beside me was attempting to coordinate with ATC to help us get back down to an airport. The Controller suggested a nearby airport but it only had an RNAV approach. The Controller gave us an initial approach fix and told us to fly direct to that fix. As we were loading the information into the GPS system; we then realized that the GPS had lost its signal thus being useless for us. With IAS at zero; no GPS; and ice on the leading edge of the wing we thought it would best to get vectors to the nearest airport with a Tower. Vectors to the Towered airport allowed us to fly at a lower altitude in VMC which helped us regain the airspeed indicator and land in VFR. The one factor that hurt us the most was 'get there itis;' I was asked to help out the owner with the flight since I had more experience than he did. The reason why I took the flight was because the other more qualified people that could help the owner were out of town so I decided to help him and did it all for free. The owner was spending a lot of money for each night at a hotel and wanted to get back soon. Another thing that I should have done was to be more involved with the preflight and weather briefing and not just take the other pilot's word since I am the PIC. I just assumed that the pitot heat was working because in flight; we found out that having the pitot heat switch on did not melt off the ice that accumulated on the pitot tube. The final item that was neglected was not inspecting themaintenance logs since I assumed it was the responsibility of the owner to ensure that the plane was up to date on maintenance. One thing I have found about myself is that I am too eager to build flight hours and need to evaluate a flight first before I fly somewhere. I want to be a safe and competent pilot with a long aviation career.
While flying a cross country at the request of the airplane's owner; and in hopes of building flight time; a commercial pilot of a PA-32 stumbled into icing; IMC; GPS failure and loss of indicated airspeed enroute. Many errors of omission and commission were part of the tale. Assistance from ATC prevented an even more distressing outcome.