Mooney pilot reported an attitude indicator failure during takeoff into IMC; resulting in an altitud...

Attributes
ACN	1712266
Time
Date	201912
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	IMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	M-20 K (231) / Encore
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Initial Climb
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Attitude Indicator(Gyro/Horizon/ADI)
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot Pilot Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Instrument Flight Crew Private
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 15 Flight Crew Total 450 Flight Crew Type 115
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical Deviation - Altitude Crossing Restriction Not Met Deviation - Altitude Overshoot Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

Narrative:

Cleared to takeoff in low overcast. Was given runway heading and climb to a 3;000 feet altitude. While transitioning to instruments roughly 200 feet AGL I noticed my artificial horizon already canted. I could still see the runway environment and knew I wasn't banked. I panicked and assumed I had lost my vacuum. I just began to climb until I cleared the overcast layer. By that time I had already broken altitude restriction and was VFR.I haven't been able to recreate undo cant in the artificial horizon again. Not sure if it was my inexperience or the instrument.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Mooney pilot reported an attitude indicator failure during takeoff into IMC; resulting in an altitude deviation.

Narrative: Cleared to takeoff in low overcast. Was given Runway heading and climb to a 3;000 feet altitude. While transitioning to instruments roughly 200 feet AGL I noticed my artificial horizon already canted. I could still see the runway environment and knew I wasn't banked. I panicked and assumed I had lost my vacuum. I just began to climb until I cleared the overcast layer. By that time I had already broken altitude restriction and was VFR.I haven't been able to recreate undo cant in the artificial horizon again. Not sure if it was my inexperience or the instrument.

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.