Narrative:

We departed teb in the evening but a ground stoppage was in affect and total time on the ground with engines running was approximately 30 minutes. As we were parked in the run up hold area we briefed the departure and had the FMS sequenced; heading mode selected and navigation in standby. We also had 1500 feet selected in the altitude preselect. Once cleared for takeoff; the gear was retracted at 400 feet and power was reduced. Around 800 to 1000 feet I reached over and engaged the autopilot; or so I thought. A few seconds later I realized the autopilot was not engaged as we were in a slight left bank and a slow descent. I placed the aircraft back into the flight director command bars and reduced the power in an effort give myself more time to correct the situation. I recall I slowed the aircraft to around 160 knots. I was able to re-engage the autopilot and the heading seemed to correct back to 240 to intercept the 260. At about this time I noticed that the altitude was about to pass 1500 feet with the restriction being 1500 until wentz. We were prior to wentz as I saw this occurring; I engaged the autopilot interrupt; nosed the aircraft back to 1500; the highest altitude I observed was 1750 plus or minus 50 feet prior to wentz. After wentz we were given an altitude assignment above 2000 and thus prior to the tasca altitude restriction of 2000.once we leveled off at our cruise altitude myself and the co-pilot did a self analysis to determine how not to repeat this event. We determined it to be an excellent practice of having the right seat pilot engage the autopilot when the left seat pilot calls for such. This will accomplish two things. One; it will allow the pilot flying to concentrate on the pfd so as not to take eyes away to look for the ap button. Two; it forces the both persons to confirm the auto pilot is actually engaged.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Flight crew reports exceeding 1;500 FT prior to WENTZ on the RUUDY 4 departure from TEB.

Narrative: We departed TEB in the evening but a ground stoppage was in affect and total time on the ground with engines running was approximately 30 minutes. As we were parked in the run up hold area we briefed the departure and had the FMS sequenced; HDG mode selected and NAV in standby. We also had 1500 feet selected in the altitude preselect. Once cleared for takeoff; the gear was retracted at 400 feet and power was reduced. Around 800 to 1000 feet I reached over and engaged the autopilot; or so I thought. A few seconds later I realized the autopilot was not engaged as we were in a slight left bank and a slow descent. I placed the aircraft back into the flight director command bars and reduced the power in an effort give myself more time to correct the situation. I recall I slowed the aircraft to around 160 knots. I was able to re-engage the autopilot and the heading seemed to correct back to 240 to intercept the 260. At about this time I noticed that the altitude was about to pass 1500 feet with the restriction being 1500 until WENTZ. We were prior to WENTZ as I saw this occurring; I engaged the autopilot interrupt; nosed the aircraft back to 1500; the highest altitude I observed was 1750 plus or minus 50 feet prior to WENTZ. After WENTZ we were given an altitude assignment above 2000 and thus prior to the TASCA altitude restriction of 2000.Once we leveled off at our cruise altitude myself and the co-pilot did a self analysis to determine how not to repeat this event. We determined it to be an excellent practice of having the right seat pilot engage the autopilot when the left seat pilot calls for such. This will accomplish two things. One; it will allow the pilot flying to concentrate on the PFD so as not to take eyes away to look for the AP button. Two; it forces the both persons to confirm the auto pilot is actually engaged.

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.