Engine failure

[Mike_flyby]

Having read the posts to this site, may people when crossing water in a SEP talk about engine failure.
I would be interested to know how may people have or have personal knowledge of an engine failure,"not caused by pilot error". ie a proper engine failure.

[flyingfemme]

due to engine failure. Having said that - they are both professional ferry pilots with hundreds of oceanic crossings to their names........and they both got right back in and did it again!

[machonepointone]

Mike_flyby,

In 30+ years of flying I have had an engine failure or two, fortunately with no adverse effects other than to the state of my underwear. You mentioned single engine aircraft, and my only experience in this field was in a light piston engine single with an updraught carburettor. Problem was that the bolts holding said carb onto the bottom of the engine came loose. I was lucky in that it happened while on downwind and I managed to complete a forced landing onto the airfield.

In a previous life I used to be in the RAF and in the 20 years that I flew I experienced an engine fire in a Victor, about four engine failures in Shackletons, I had to shut an engine down in a Canberra due to low oil pressure, and the piece de resistance was the night I had a multiple birdstrike in a Canberra, lost one engine immediately and the second one on finals.

If you re-read this letter it almost begs the question "Are multi-engine aircraft safer than singles?" The bottom line, I suggest, is that you frequently practice engine failure drills and, (if you fly singles), keep in practice with PFLs.

However, to put all this into perspective, all thes failures took place over a period of 38 years and nearly 13000 hours, so the statistics are still pretty good.

Don't let the thought of engine failures put you off flying or give you a fear for it. As I was told many years ago - flying is the most fun you can have with your clothes on, so fly safe and enjoy it.

[poetpilot]

3 engine failures in 800 hrs of PPL flying in SEPs. 2 on the same day, same aircraft. In all 3 cases, landed at a pukka airfield that was within reach.

1 was a split crankcase - lost all the oil at 1300 feet on climbout.:{

the 2 were down to bad mixture adjustments on a Gipsy engine (Chipmunk). The first occurred taking it to a Gipsy expert for tuning. The second occurred on the way home from tuning ! :\

[kabz]

Yeah, had a stuck/bent valve in a 172 and power loss such that the aircraft would not maintain altitude. Stuck it down at the nearest airport ...

kabz emergency - thread (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83139)

[Final 3 Greens]

Nearest I got was losing 3 sparkplugs (5 good ones left) on the climbout from Southend at night.

Was pretty anxious until I completed a swift circuit and landed, as I didn't know what the prob was, just that the engine was running a little rough and some power was gone.

I guess that engine failure in a light single is reasonably low probability, but obviously high potential severity, especially over water or at night.

Having said that, if you mitigate the risks by pre-planning (e.g. avoid long over water sectors, stay in the circuit at night), you can lower the exposure -or- you can say to hell with it and accept the risk anyway, on the basis that life is dangerous anyway.

Personally I take the former view, but I know people who take the later and have been enjoying their flying for years.

[FormationFlyer]

heheh.

Having said that, if you mitigate the risks by pre-planning (e.g. avoid long over water sectors, stay in the circuit at night), you can lower the exposure -or- you can say to hell with it and accept the risk anyway, on the basis that life is dangerous anyway.

Im in trouble then....Fair comment about water - ditching is not pleasant and you dont have much time to live in reality regardless of conditions unless you have an appropriate dinghy.

Night - always stay in the circuit? I will put money on the fact that at ANY a/d in the UK that does night flying that you are outside gliding range for probably 60-80% of the time - if not more. You can thank the nimbys for that. EFATO is always possible after all isnt it? So the circuit wont help protect you here. For 0 risk you needed to say dont night fly. ho hum.

As an instructor with a fair few night training hours I see little point in taking the 'dont fly singles at night' attitude.

Firstly the Night Qualification *requires* navigation - as does issue of a commercial licence (although you could do it all on twins....at much greater cost...i.e. be very very rich....or exceedingly poor!). Second - you have the same risk of failure during the day - and if you examine the accident statistics then most night forced landings are survivable - provided you dont lose control of the aircraft and you use *different* techniques to day forced landings...and finally, thrid - twins are no better.....for instance a PA34 piper seneca doesnt climb on full tanks in the event of loss of one engine. It is often said on the seneca that having two engines just moves the crash site further away! (and yes I have registered a 150fpm rate of descent in a zero thrust, 5deg bank to live, blue line on one occassion during training...).

With regard to accidents the biggest killer is not engine failure - its CFIT followed by Loss of Control in VMC. Yes. VMC. And the biggest cause of engine failure is without a doubt engine mis-management (fuel/mixture/carb heat). A quick read through the accident reports included with GASIL will show this....

And as for the worst emergency at night - its not an engine failure :) and it isnt the worst during the day either...has to be

1. catastophic structural failure (anytime)
2. fire (anytime)
3. total loss of electrics at night under IMC - and possibly compounded by icing conditions to boot! (i.e. loss of comms, nav as well as deicing equipment - which in most light a/c is electrically operated).
4. engine failure

I hasten to add that in situation 3 - Alternator Failure can ride that high too, as 30mins later (generally) the alt failure suddenly becomes 3. Just hope you can get down before nav is lost - and then before you run out of fuel!!!

--------

Back to the subject matter - Ive had partial loss of power twice. One unknown reason - possibly faulty primer leaking fuel through - over rich cause rough running. And the other was a throttle cable snapping on a twin cable/carb system. No engine failure yet....fingers and legs tightly crossed!!!

[Mike Cross]

Two that I know of

One is Chris Linton, recent recipient of the CAA Safety Award. He had a con-rod failure in his Bonanza shortly after take-off from Shoreham and put it down safely on the beach at Worthing.

Another was the late Richard Fox. He had a loss of oil pressure mid-channel and ended up landing at Cherboug with a dead engine. Apparantly despite a Mayday being declared they had to push the a/c off the runway as the emergency services hadn't been alerted. He was later killed at Woburn when he lost power shortly after take-off and stalled in. The suspected cause was vapur lock exacerbated by high ambient temperature, a prolonged hold, and the use of mogas.

Mike

[big.al]

I've posted about this before, so at risk of repeating myself....

Had an (almost complete) engine failure in a C152 whilst PPL training last year. Flying solo circuits at an airfield some way from base. Initially thought that the problem was plug-fouling, as the rough running felt very similar to that caused by a fouled plug. After leaning out the mix and running at full power with the brakes on, the problem cleared (or so I thought) so it was back to the runway for departure back to base.

Approx. 4 miles from departure airfield and with around 25 miles to run, the engine suddenly began shaking very violently. At circa 1500ft and losing height around 300fpm at full power, my only option was to return to the airfield I'd just left and get to the first available runway. Thankfully after turning around I was lined up long-final on runway 22 (not the runway in use). Made a straight in approach just as the last power died away - the engine cut completely just short of the hold point on the taxiway.

Turned out to be a sheared cylinder bolt, resulting in one cylinder coming clean away from the engine. The strange thing was that the engine temp and pressure didn't drop until I was only 1 mile from touchdown, so there had been no prior indication of a major failure.

[Final 3 Greens]

With regard to accidents the biggest killer is not engine failure - its CFIT followed by Loss of Control in VMC

Yes, I can understand why one would lose control following flight into terrain :)