Narrative:

In mid morning; I conducted the aircraft preflight. I noted that the GPS data card was effective until today. When the system was turned on; the database message saying 'database expires on [today]' was shown in white letters (not yellow; as shown when the database had expired) during the system boot up; therefore; I decided to proceed with the flight. The flight was completed at late afternoon the same day with no 'database expired' message during the all four legs of the trip. The next day; a chief pilot was supervising the fleet fueling before the flights and noticed that the database cards had not been changed. He then informed all the pilots on duty that morning and the area manager. All pilots made a logbook entry and informed maintenance control. Maintenance control informed one of the pilots that called; that we he had flown illegally the previous day because the database had expired before the flights on that day. There is not an exact time available for the database expiration. According to my experience; the data base expires at 2359z on the expiration day. Furthermore when the database expires; the 'database expired' message appears in yellow letters at system boot up and is easily seen; which did not happened that day. I had the experience the previous month; when maintenance changed the card two days before the expiration date and when I turned the system on; I quickly noticed the message in yellow letters. Maintenance was informed and they came and changed the cards before the flights on the next day. The company called garmin to find out when exactly the database expires; but garmin didn't have an immediate answer. Database cards should be always changed on the day [before the end] of the cycle; since there is an overlap on day after between the old and new card. A precise time of expiration should be obtained from garmin and training should be given to pilots and maintenance with all the information related to the database expiration date; expiration time; and overlap days in the cycle.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A C208 Captain noted that the aircraft GPS database would be out of date the next day and upon return the next day the Chief Pilot found DATABASE EXPIRED messages displayed on all aircraft. Maintenance was notified.

Narrative: In mid morning; I conducted the aircraft preflight. I noted that the GPS data card was effective until today. When the system was turned on; the database message saying 'Database expires on [today]' was shown in white letters (not yellow; as shown when the database had expired) during the system boot up; therefore; I decided to proceed with the flight. The flight was completed at late afternoon the same day with no 'Database Expired' message during the all four legs of the trip. The next day; a Chief Pilot was supervising the fleet fueling before the flights and noticed that the database cards had not been changed. He then informed all the pilots on duty that morning and the area Manager. All pilots made a logbook entry and informed Maintenance Control. Maintenance Control informed one of the pilots that called; that we he had flown illegally the previous day because the database had expired before the flights on that day. There is not an exact time available for the database expiration. According to my experience; the data base expires at 2359z on the expiration day. Furthermore when the database expires; the 'Database Expired' message appears in yellow letters at system boot up and is easily seen; which did not happened that day. I had the experience the previous month; when Maintenance changed the card two days before the expiration date and when I turned the system on; I quickly noticed the message in yellow letters. Maintenance was informed and they came and changed the cards before the flights on the next day. The company called Garmin to find out when exactly the database expires; but Garmin didn't have an immediate answer. Database cards should be always changed on the day [before the end] of the cycle; since there is an overlap on day after between the old and new card. A precise time of expiration should be obtained from Garmin and training should be given to pilots and Maintenance with all the information related to the database expiration date; expiration time; and overlap days in the cycle.

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.