TEAL Electra single engine arrival at Nowra NSW

[NZ Flyers]

I heard about a TEAL Electra that made a single engine arrival into Nowra NSW after losing the other three engines over the Tasman Sea from a Flight Service Officer who was working at Sydney Flight Service Centre when the incident occurred (late '60s or early '70s).


Unfortunately the FSO has passed away and I was wondering if there is anybody out there who may be able to fill in some more details of what happened.


Must have been a very close call.

[Al E. Vator]

Wow that'd wake you up. The Allison was a mighty powerful engine but not sure how well the L188 would perform on just 1!

Hope somebody has some info.

Here's one with 'em all stopped!
http://flyawaysimulation.com/media/images11/images/New-Zealand-Lockheed-L188-fsx1.jpg

[Ex FSO GRIFFO]

All 'freewheeling' props in perfect alignment....???

Cheers :E

[Squawk7700]

Well it IS a simulator Griffo :ok:

[Bushfiva]

Are you perhaps referring to this? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEAL#Lockheed_Electra_L-188_crash)

[megan]

Was at Nowra in the time period you mention and not heard of this story before. There was a Lear that lost both engines one night while working with Navy ships, managed to get one relit and made a GCA into Nowra in distinctly dirty weather. Watched from the tower. Both engines were only good for scrap from the look of the blades. Perhaps something lost in the telling?

[B772]

A L188 freighter landed at Stansted on Number 4 only about 6 years ago.

[Hugh Mungus]

Ahhhh the dreaded prop sync Sometimes developed a malicious mindset :8

[Wunwing]

Maybe he was referring to a Qantas Electra who made a quick return to SYD after a massive gull strike.

I worked on one as a very young apprentice and we spent all day scraping of the bird remains and pulling them out of the engine inlets. I know that they lost at least one engine but I'm not sure if there were more. I know that the crew were decidly unimpressed at the time with the bird sanctuary on the lakes at the airport.

Wunwing

[Centaurus]

Bushviva. This is a copy of the incident you referred to.

Lockheed Electra L-188 crash[edit]

On March 27, 1965, Teal's Lockheed Electra L-188 ZK-TEC Akaroa, crashed during a training flight at Whenuapai. The airline had done the following manoeuvre many times before: the Electra, flying at precisely 140kts, could be flown over the runway threshold, throttled back to idle to drop almost vertically and land on the runway. As this would never be done on a passenger flight; the reason for the procedure remains a mystery.

Onboard were a captain, a check captain, a flight engineer, a navigator; the airline's industrial personnel officer and an emergency procedures officer standing behind them.

As Akaroa's speed dropped below 140 knots the aeroplane landed very heavily, collapsing the landing gear; Akaroa shed wings, engines, tailplane and tail as she skidded off the runway and across the grass towards the control tower. Somehow, the two standing officers stayed standing, the fire extinguishers were turned on and everyone was evacuated through the cockpit windows, with one man burning his hand on the escape rope. TEAL salvaged what they could from the wreck and the remains were quickly pushed into a gully behind the NAC hangars before the public saw them. The crash took place in the early hours of the morning. The training procedure was quickly deleted from TEAL's manuals. TEAL purchased a replacement Electra from Qantas after it changed its name to Air New Zealand on 1 April 1965


Circa 1964-5, RAAF 34 Squadron (Canberra) obtained two Vickers Viscount 832 series. I think the first four pilots (two captains and two copilots) were sent to Melbourne to be trained by Ansett. If that is wrong then they must have been trained elsewhere; maybe overseas? One captain was the Wing Commander Commanding Officer of the Squadron. The other RAAF captain was designated to be a Viscount QFI. After completing the conversion course he was tested by Central Flying School at East Sale. Of course none of the CFS instructors had flown Viscounts so they were given a couple of landings. As he was already a QFI on the C130 and Dakota he was henceforth approved by CFS to instruct on the Viscount. That's the way it was in those days.

I was next in line and did the Ansett ground engineering course on the Viscount and a very thorough course it was too with first class ground instructors.

On arrival back to the squadron after the five week ground course, I was checked out on the Viscount by the QFI who of course did not have much experience on type. We were doing circuits at Fairbairn on runway 35 on a perfect day and the QFI told me to try a glide approach (just like the old Wirraway) which meant turning a normal base and final at 1500 feet and when I was sure of getting in, the technique was to close all four throttles and glide in from there.

Although I had flown a jet fighter I had not flown a turbo-prop and had no idea how much drag occurred with power at idle. I think the normal approach speed in the Viscount was around 130 knots and I decided to add another 10 knots for the flare from a glide. It was fortunate that I did.

I was completely caught out by the massive drag of the props at idle and to maintain 140 knots we had to come down very steeply like a Stuka dive-bomber. It was soon painfully obvious that I had under estimated the steepness of the final approach and we would have landed half a mile short of the threshold if the approach had continued un-corrected.

As soon as it was obvious the glide approach was going pear-shaped I had no choice except to apply normal power and at around 500 feet reverted to a standard powered approach. The landing was normal. I discussed the event with the QFI and suggested that a demonstration of a glide approach in that sort of aircraft was potentially bloody dangerous and we should not do it. Later I became a QFI on the Viscount but never involved glide approaches.

Of course the QFI knew glide approaches were not on for normal landings but he explained that it had been demonstrated to him during his initial conversion, as a means of showing to students on type what happens if the power is pulled off far too early on final. In other words very high sink rate and abnormally steep angle of approach.

The Electra crew paid the penalty of pressing on until it was too late to arrest the high rate of descent. Truth be known the manoeuvre should never have been part of the training in turbo-prop aircraft.

[john_tullamarine]

The drag asymmetry during the flare with one shut down on the Electra was sufficiently attention getting .... at least the first time ...

Losing one was not considered an unusual situation .. prop decoupling being a common offender.

Two made for an occasional change from the routine ...

Losing three would have to be gross carelessness/misfortune somewhere along the way.

[A and C]

This may be of interest to all you Electra fans.

ASN Aircraft accident Lockheed L-188AF Electra N285F Shannon Airport (SNN) (http://aviation-safety.net/database/record.php?id=19990301-0)

[freighterone]

Having many hours in a training and checking capacity on the L188 I can offer the following:
1. It would be impossible if the operative engine was an outboard.
2. If it was an inboard it may be possible (and it's a big may) if the approach was conducted in a clean configuration until 300' and then selecting gear and min flap. Maintaining a speed above the 2 engine approach speed and full deflection high on the glide slope, ensuring throughout a safe margin above the VMCA.
3. Once gear and flap is extended drag overcomes max power available and the sink rate will increase and the speed wash off. The only way to overcome this is by carrying additional speed throughout the approach.
4. It would need VMC conditions with no crosswind to ensure aircraft control on approach.
I have never heard of an Electra carrying out a 1 engine approach and landing worldwide.

[NZ Flyers]

I think I may have stumbled upon the explanation for this.
Seems that it wasn't an Electra but there was an incident involving a RAAF C130 A97 172 that had been serviced in NZ and was returning to Richmond when they lost one then two engines. See below:

At some stage this aircraft was returning from New Zealand after a major service and an engine seized up.
On its continued flight to Richmond a second engine gave up.
So they diverted to RAAF Fairbairn and had just pulled up on the tarmac when the third & fourth engines just gave up.
The reason given was fuel contamination.
It sat for about 1 month while they dried out the tanks.
Was in Service 37 Sqn.

Strangely no date is given but seems a likely that this is the incident in question.

[Stanwell]

Yep.
That sounds more like it, NZ F.

[megan]

NZ Flyers, Have very vague memory of NZ sourced fuel at one time having lubricity issues which played havoc with FCU's.

[Beez51]

NZ Flyers,
Not quite a single engine landing for a RAAF C-130. Although I flew for the 'opposition' at the time, my recollection from back then was that there was in fact an incident somewhat earlier after another C-130E was test flown out of deeper level maintenance by Air New Zealand in Christchurch. One engine flamed out during the test flight and upon return to Christchurch a number of the other operating engines lost power and were not responding to the power levers. The aircraft captain ('Frenchy' if I remember correctly) did a great job and landed safely. At some stage during the landing roll one of the other engines flamed out and once off the runway I think they might have suffered another flame-out.

A97-172 was test flown successfully some time later, again out of deeper level maintenance in Christchurch and arrived back at Richmond. A short time later, it carried out a task possibly to Canberra and suffered a similar experience and managed to land at Canberra safely. I think it was just before Christmas and it certainly sat there for some time. Eventually the RAAF determined that the power losses were caused by the blasting medium used to clean the fuel tanks not being adequately removed from the tanks which resulted in some type of jelly forming in the FCUs. The investigation was not straightforward in that most of the evident passed through FCU and wasn't obvious in the fuel filters. No doubt the engines successfully restarted and operated normally when on the ground.

A number of years later the USAF experienced a similar problem with a couple of C-141 aircraft and I believe that the RAAF was able to assist them with what appeared to be a similar issue.

As far as I know the RAAF have not landed any four engine aircraft on less than two engines in recent times. A RAAF C-130H conducted a successful double asymmetric landing at Davis Monthan in the USA after starving Engine 1 & 2 of oil pressure during a jinking maneuver. A C-130E also conducted a successful two engine landing (3&4 out) after two unrelated problems, a turbine failure followed by an oil pump failure. Both captains now fly for Qantas. I have little knowledge of the C-130A except that the different pairing of engines for the hydraulic systems (1&3 and 2&4 instead of 1&2 and 3&4) resulted in a number of two engine landing caused by hydraulic system failures but these would not have been double asymmetric. I'm confident that a number of the more mature members may be able to update this.
:)
I think if there is any current RAAF four engined aircraft that could maintain level flight on one engine it would be the C-130J. Although a little heavier and more draggy than the AP-3C it has 25% more thrust than its' T-56 powered brothers for the same 4700 Hp. Obviously to achieve level flight we would be talking light weight, lower altitudes, no drag devices and ~160K.

For Centaurus, in the sim, the C-130J glide approach does not sound anywhere near as exciting as the Viscount. This is all helped by keeping one inboard at 100% Np to maintain electrics and hydraulics and the other props either feathered or autofeathered.
:)

[megan]

Flew with two guys who claimed they used to do single engine circuits at extremely light weights on the 130 at Richmond, just to see if it could be done. Other three at idle of course, presumably following take off.