A 30-year-old commercial pilot and a passenger left Plant City, Florida, on a Saturday morning in March for a time-building trip to Las Vegas. The plan was to return around the middle of the coming week, depending on weather. The pilot had rented a Diamond DA40 for the trip, a four-seater with a 180 hp engine, a gliderlike wing of nearly 40-foot span and a cross-country speed of around 150 knots. The three-year-old airplane was equipped with a Garmin G1000 glass panel, a system with which the pilot had several hundred hours of experience.
Leaving Plant City at 1100 EST and stopping at Mobile, Alabama, they reached Huntsville, Texas, at 1920 CST. At this point they had been airborne for 7½ hours, and the pilot had put in an additional hour being checked out in the DA40 before their departure. They had originally intended to continue after refueling, but after discussing how tired they both felt, they decided to stay the night at Huntsville.
