Narrative:

The flight departed and climbed up to 12;000ft on an IFR clearance. The first indication of trouble was the occurrence of the alternator warning light coming on. I cycled both alternators separately and found that this did not extinguish the warning light. There was also an electrical burning smell in the cockpit but only very minor amounts of smoke. I decided that we needed to land as soon as practicable. I called ATC on the radio and explained the situation and declared an emergency. I went through my emergency checklist memory items. Out of the right field of view; I saw a set of hirls nearby and what seemed like a number of crossing runways. I started an exploratory turn to the east toward the hirls and told the controller what I was doing. He said that this was the ZZZ airport. During this part of the evolution; I became aware that the engine was not running any more. I got the hydraulics caution light and the starter engaged light. I informed the controller that my engine was windmilling. I asked him to bring out the equipment and to turn up the runway lights. At some point in this part of the evolution; I went through a sequence of memory items to attempt to restart the engine. As none of these items had a positive effect; I immediately abandoned that course of action. To make my key point to the runway; I needed to lose some altitude. I did that with a 360 degree turn and some additional s-turns toward the runway. I slowed the aircraft down by pitching toward a more level attitude and pulled the emergency gear extension plunger while fishtailing the aircraft slightly to use the main wheel fairings as aerodynamic assist to lock the gear in place. I had no feedback; whatsoever; that told me if the gear was down and locked. I assumed that it was not down. I told the controller that this may be a gear-up landing. Once I arrived at the key point; I put the aircraft into a very steep forward slip with the left wing almost pointing in the direction I was going. This provided me with good visibility of the landing zone out my left window and it allowed me to perform a steep and controlled descent with managed speed to the runway threshold. As I got to the threshold; I removed the slip and aligned with the runway and set up for a very careful; slow; and level flare as I was expecting this to be a gear-up landing. I was actually positively surprised that the wheels were in fact out because of the emergency extension. After the aircraft came to a stop; I ordered the passengers to evacuate and move away from the aircraft to the runway's edge. There was some smoke coming out from under the exhaust fairing but there was no other visible damage to the aircraft and there were no open flames. The fire crew secured the aircraft and towed it to the fixed base operator.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A PA-46 Pilot reported electrical smoke and fumes; followed by engine failure. He declared an emergency and diverted to a nearby airport for a safe landing.

Narrative: The flight departed and climbed up to 12;000ft on an IFR clearance. The first indication of trouble was the occurrence of the alternator warning light coming on. I cycled both alternators separately and found that this did not extinguish the warning light. There was also an electrical burning smell in the cockpit but only very minor amounts of smoke. I decided that we needed to land as soon as practicable. I called ATC on the radio and explained the situation and declared an emergency. I went through my emergency checklist memory items. Out of the right field of view; I saw a set of HIRLs nearby and what seemed like a number of crossing runways. I started an exploratory turn to the east toward the HIRLs and told the Controller what I was doing. He said that this was the ZZZ airport. During this part of the evolution; I became aware that the engine was not running any more. I got the HYDRAULICS caution light and the STARTER ENGAGED light. I informed the controller that my engine was windmilling. I asked him to bring out the equipment and to turn up the runway lights. At some point in this part of the evolution; I went through a sequence of memory items to attempt to restart the engine. As none of these items had a positive effect; I immediately abandoned that course of action. To make my key point to the runway; I needed to lose some altitude. I did that with a 360 degree turn and some additional s-turns toward the runway. I slowed the aircraft down by pitching toward a more level attitude and pulled the emergency gear extension plunger while fishtailing the aircraft slightly to use the main wheel fairings as aerodynamic assist to lock the gear in place. I had no feedback; whatsoever; that told me if the gear was down and locked. I assumed that it was not down. I told the Controller that this may be a gear-up landing. Once I arrived at the key point; I put the aircraft into a very steep forward slip with the left wing almost pointing in the direction I was going. This provided me with good visibility of the landing zone out my left window and it allowed me to perform a steep and controlled descent with managed speed to the runway threshold. As I got to the threshold; I removed the slip and aligned with the runway and set up for a very careful; slow; and level flare as I was expecting this to be a gear-up landing. I was actually positively surprised that the wheels were in fact out because of the emergency extension. After the aircraft came to a stop; I ordered the passengers to evacuate and move away from the aircraft to the runway's edge. There was some smoke coming out from under the exhaust fairing but there was no other visible damage to the aircraft and there were no open flames. The fire crew secured the aircraft and towed it to the fixed base operator.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.