19951118042379I

Narrative: on Saturday, November 18, 1995, I set forth on a pleasure weekend trip IFR form D95 (dupont-lapeer) to N83 (concord, NC) with my husband, brother, and sister-in-law as passengers. Weather briefings were obtained and flight plans filed. We departed D95 at approximately noon IFR and proceeded as filed and cleared with a change almost 3 hours into the flight to stop for food and personal relief at lexington, KY. We continued on after another wx briefing and flight plan being filed. Weather was IFR upon departure from lex. My wx briefing, prior to lex departure, included ssw winds at 9000 feet along my path of flight, mountain tops may be obscured by clouds, and weather clearing to VFR at my destination. We departed lex at approximately 4:20 p.m. local, IFR, and climb out to 9000 feet on course was uneventful. At approximately 4:50 p.m. local, without any indication/warning, I lost all electrical in the aircraft. My dash panel went "black". I checked all circuit breakers and then turned off all electric switches. I squawked "7600" on my transponder, knowing that it was not transmitting (I guess I wanted it to send the message). The plane was flying fine, I was above the cloud deck in sunshine and had a lot going for us! I did not want to go down through clouds until I was VFR. I continued on the cleared flight plan knowing that improving weather was in the direction we were going. I had been tracking 135 degrees to maintain a 120 heading at the time of the electrical failure. I was unable to predict drift so I corrected a 135 degree heading to 140 as I wanted to stay on or more south of my course than chance a drift north of course because of winds aloft. Weather was better south and east. My last ground speed had been 135 knots. I was going to try to use that for a guesstimate of where we were when I decided to chance our descent to earth and a landing. I knew that th ere were obstructions as high as 8400 feet if I were to drift off of course so I wanted to maintain 9000 feet until I was committed to a landing. Fuel was not a concern other than I had plenty of it, topped off at lex, and if I flew long enough, I could be over the atlantic! I continued on course at 9000 feet and informed my passengers that we were to look for breaks in the clouds. I began to get concerned when the sun began to set as I wanted to have daylight for my landing. I would not attempt an emergency landing in darkness in mountains as long as I had power. About 20 minutes of non electrical flight passed and the cloud cover below began to change color and thin. Three "holes" were seen with good visualization of lights and ground terrain. I informed the passengers that we were going for "it" and that our descent might not be pleasant to our ears but wanted to get on the ground before sunset (about 10 minutes I figured). I leveled off at 4000 feet over a narrow valley and pretty rugged terrain, nothing was flat! There were lots of poles and power lines and hills and mountains. We circled back and forth over the town and located a "walking track" in the valley. I decided to make an approach to land there but was unable to lose approximately 3000 feet in such a short approach as I had to approach from a mountain ridge. As I put in power to climb out over the next ridge across the valley I saw a small green flat area that just seemed to light up! It was on the side of the mountain that I was climbing out over. I said, "that's it, we can land right there., I circled around over the valley and the mountain ridge that I had begun the first approach from and made the second approach. This time I had greater distance and half of the altitude to get rid of. We landed very easily but the terrain was lumpy and muddy. We stopped in about 350 feet. The only problem occurred when the nose wheel touched down and bogged in the muck. The plane slid to the side and the front wheel bent over and the propeller splashed in the mud, bending the two ends. We all got out, took our overnight bags and flashligh ts and walked down to the town. It was dark now and we really could not see the amount of damage to the plane, but we were fine! We were taken to the police department and I called flight services to report our incident and the rest is history. I hope that this narrative proves to be helpful for future research into the safety of flying. I am so confident in our system and very glad to have practiced emergency procedures. My cfi's deserve a lot of credit and a huge thank you! If you need more information, please contact me and again thank you for your support. Sincerely, melinda g. beaudry N9448W