Narrative:

While climbing through FL250 both myself and my cockpit smelled a chemical odor that can be best described as a hot cigarette; like when it is first lit by a match. It soon got very noticeable/worse. We wondered if it was our passengers; so I turned to look. They were not smoking. I then asked if they smelled something; to which they emphatically said yes; with a bit of concern on their faces. With that knowledge that it was the whole aircraft involved; I decided to divert. There was no visible smoke detected. I contacted ATC and said we need to stop the climb. We then elected ZZZ as our divert field. We received vectors and a decent. At this point my copilot contacted company and I took over as pilot flying. My first officer went back to check on the passengers and the odor. He said they were fine and that the odor was definitely in the cabin as well. As I powered back for the descent; the odor dissipated fairly quickly. All of this was within 1 minute; from odor detection; verifying no smoke or smokers to dissipation of odor. I then decided to not advise ATC; but it seems ATC advise for us internally; as they asked a couple times for fuel and souls onboard. While approaching ZZZ; we switched back to my first officer as pilot flying and me as pilot monitoring. While running the landing weight numbers for speeds; I noticed we were real close to max landing weight. The computer kept showing different weights at landing due to our vectors and power changes. As our passengers were slight in size and their bags weren't very heavy; I believed actual landing weight was lighter than what was showing. Approach and landing were normal. My first officer accomplished a very soft landing. Arff was rolled by tower apparently and they followed us to the FBO ramp. After shutdown; I asked the passengers what they smelled and they said it smelled like hot cigarettes. A firefighter checked the plane with ir gear and found no hotspots. I asked him to check for any odor in the cabin. He said it smelled like a new car smell. While we cleaned the aircraft we could not detect any leftover odors.because we allow smoking in our aircraft; we delayed donning our masks. As it was hard to determine what and where the odor was coming from. Our immediate thoughts was our passengers had lit up. But it didn't smell quite like cigarette smoke nor a burnt electrical circuit. After asking the passengers if smoking and receiving a no; we went into divert mode. We should have donned the masks. I'm not sure if we were getting used to the odor or just got busy. It wasn't getting worse like it first did and did subside soon after. Both of us did feel the odor in our throats and I felt it in my eyes. But not debilitating. Again the worst of it happened very quickly; while we were trying to figure out what was happening. I feel both me and my copilots experiences with smokers on aircraft in the past; delayed our donning of the masks.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: EMB-505 flight crew reported executing an uneventful divert due to fumes throughout the aircraft.

Narrative: While climbing through FL250 both myself and my cockpit smelled a chemical odor that can be best described as a hot cigarette; like when it is first lit by a match. It soon got very noticeable/worse. We wondered if it was our passengers; so I turned to look. They were not smoking. I then asked if they smelled something; to which they emphatically said yes; with a bit of concern on their faces. With that knowledge that it was the whole aircraft involved; I decided to divert. There was no visible smoke detected. I contacted ATC and said we need to stop the climb. We then elected ZZZ as our divert field. We received vectors and a decent. At this point my copilot contacted Company and I took over as Pilot Flying. My First Officer went back to check on the passengers and the odor. He said they were fine and that the odor was definitely in the cabin as well. As I powered back for the descent; the odor dissipated fairly quickly. All of this was within 1 minute; from odor detection; verifying no smoke or smokers to dissipation of odor. I then decided to not advise ATC; but it seems ATC advise for us internally; as they asked a couple times for fuel and souls onboard. While approaching ZZZ; we switched back to my First Officer as Pilot Flying and me as Pilot Monitoring. While running the landing weight numbers for speeds; I noticed we were real close to max landing weight. The computer kept showing different weights at landing due to our vectors and power changes. As our passengers were slight in size and their bags weren't very heavy; I believed actual landing weight was lighter than what was showing. Approach and landing were normal. My First Officer accomplished a very soft landing. ARFF was rolled by Tower apparently and they followed us to the FBO ramp. After shutdown; I asked the passengers what they smelled and they said it smelled like hot cigarettes. A firefighter checked the plane with IR gear and found no hotspots. I asked him to check for any odor in the cabin. He said it smelled like a new car smell. While we cleaned the aircraft we could not detect any leftover odors.Because we allow smoking in our aircraft; we delayed donning our masks. As it was hard to determine what and where the odor was coming from. Our immediate thoughts was our passengers had lit up. But it didn't smell quite like cigarette smoke nor a burnt electrical circuit. After asking the passengers if smoking and receiving a no; we went into divert mode. We should have donned the masks. I'm not sure if we were getting used to the odor or just got busy. It wasn't getting worse like it first did and did subside soon after. Both of us did feel the odor in our throats and I felt it in my eyes. But not debilitating. Again the worst of it happened very quickly; while we were trying to figure out what was happening. I feel both me and my copilots experiences with smokers on aircraft in the past; delayed our donning of the masks.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.