Piper PA-28-181 N432RM accident near Bridger, Montana

Probable cause

The pilot failed to maintain situational awareness during the flight. Contributing to the accident were the dark night, the pilot's failure to follow approved navigational procedures for the flight, and the pilot's over reliance on the avionics in the airplane.

NTSB analysis

The pilot departed on a night, solo cross-country flight to fulfill a training requirement for his commercial pilot certificate. Although the pilot was aware that the flight was to be flown using dead reckoning and pilotage, he did not verify the ground checkpoints during the flight, which resulted in his loss of situational awareness. Following departure, the air traffic controller had the pilot fly southeast of the airport. After the pilot cleared the airspace, in an action inconsistent with established visual flight rules (VFR) procedures set by his school, the pilot incorrectly entered a true course rather than a magnetic course into the global positioning system (GPS) onboard the airplane. In the process of programming the GPS unit, he used a GPS course entry procedure that was only to be used during instrument flight procedures rather than VFR flight navigation. The pilot then activated the autopilot to fly the entered course. During the flight, the airplane entered instrument flight rules conditions and the pilot disconnected the autopilot. The pilot then received a warning on the GPS that the airplane was close to terrain. He began a left turn to return to visual flight rules. During the turn, the airplane impacted the terrain. The pilot did not report any mechanical or navigational anomalies with the airplane and none were identified during the postaccident examination of the wreckage and instrumentation.

Text from the NTSB. Open the NTSB docket for SEA08LA095 for the full record.