While attempting to climb above weather the pilot of a uav lost control of his aircraft at FL210 and...

Attributes
ACN	1019368
Time
Date	201206
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	ZAB.ARTCC
State Reference	NM
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	UAV - Unpiloted Aerial Vehicle
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Climb
Route In Use	Direct
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 60 Flight Crew Total 2300 Flight Crew Type 100
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Procedural Clearance Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Miss Distance	Vertical 1500

Narrative:

I requested a climb from FL190 to FL250 to climb above weather. Before entering into a climb I asked the second officer to perform a full sweep with the camera to look for cloud location and adverse weather. None was noted.climbing through FL210 conditions were encountered that affected the performance of the aircraft and resulted in a loss of altitude from FL210 to 16;500 MSL. Due to my efforts to fully regain positive control of the aircraft I was unable to declare an emergency as the main concern was to regain positive control of the airplane and prevent further descent. As soon as I regained positive control I initiated an immediate climb to the cleared altitude of FL250. ATC advised of the deviation in altitude. I advised ATC that the descent was due to weather and the aircraft currently in a climb to FL250. The flight level request was amended to FL290 in order to fly above weather.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: While attempting to climb above weather the pilot of a UAV lost control of his aircraft at FL210 and lost altitude to 16;500 MSL before regaining control and restarting the climb.

Narrative: I requested a climb from FL190 to FL250 to climb above weather. Before entering into a climb I asked the Second Officer to perform a full sweep with the camera to look for cloud location and adverse weather. None was noted.Climbing through FL210 conditions were encountered that affected the performance of the aircraft and resulted in a loss of altitude from FL210 to 16;500 MSL. Due to my efforts to fully regain positive control of the aircraft I was unable to declare an emergency as the main concern was to regain positive control of the airplane and prevent further descent. As soon as I regained positive control I initiated an immediate climb to the cleared altitude of FL250. ATC advised of the deviation in altitude. I advised ATC that the descent was due to weather and the aircraft currently in a climb to FL250. The flight level request was amended to FL290 in order to fly above weather.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

While attempting to climb above weather the pilot of a uav lost control of his aircraft at FL210 and lost altitude to 16;500 MSL before regaining control and restarting the climb.