Hawarden Nov 2013 fatal crash - AAIB report
In many cases I found that an engine shut down with the mixture and the plane around Vmca, if you did not feather promptly, the engine would stop completely, and could not be feathered after that.
However, When is an aircraft going to be at Vmca and feathering is going to be needed very promptly?
The way I was taught to fly a light twin the procedure for any engine failure below blue line was to close both throttles and land ahead. This was due to the fact that at blue line, performance was marginal and worse than marginal below blue line, and speed was likely to decrease further before you got things sorted and attempted to accelerate to blue line ,plus you would be losing height. In the intervening time you were most likely to have contacted the ground or lost control at Vmca.
You were much better off to treat the light twin like a single engine aircraft below blue line and land ahead while maintaining control rather than trying fly away and lose control.
At blue line and above I think you'll find the prop will windmill at speeds that allow you to feather the prop in a considered and timely fashion.
I've seen the photos of botched shut downs, wrong engine feathered, and aircraft forced landed with both engines shut down. These incidents may may have been caused by the pilot thinking they had to rush to feather the prop. Under normal circumstances you have adequate time to do your drills properly. I'm not saying you have forever but you don't need to rush.
The way I was taught to fly a light twin the procedure for any engine failure below blue line was to close both throttles and land ahead. This was due to the fact that at blue line, performance was marginal and worse than marginal below blue line, and speed was likely to decrease further before you got things sorted and attempted to accelerate to blue line ,plus you would be losing height. In the intervening time you were most likely to have contacted the ground or lost control at Vmca.
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This is exactly what I also teach. 2 other points
1) My end of flight checklist for a 310 (and similar complex pistons) i sdevided into 3 short set of checks. It goes descent/approach. prelanding and final.
The first item on the descent check is "fuel selectors & quantity". It is designed to prevent exactly this kind of accident.
2) System knowledge is important. The C 310 POH specifies that the aux tanks be used in level flight because they have no slosh box or other anti unporting features. However this does not mean that the engines will stop if they are used in other than straight and level flight. In a case like this accident where for what ever reason, main tank fuel is critically low, aux fuel can be safely used as long as pitch and bank angles are kept low.
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I certainly agree that an engine failure in most light twins is well treated by a throttles closed, land ahead, if that is what the pilot is comfortable with. The 310R will climb away on one, with great care. That was a part of my multi endorsement, which was done in the 310, back in the day when single engined work was compete shutdowns. The 310 fuel system makes it near impossible to be running on the aux's with empty mains, as the excess fuel from the aux's will be returned to the mains, so when you go back to them, you'll always have more than was there when you left them. This is a part of getting to know the Cessna twin fuel systems.
I have tested MT props on several twins, as well as a number of other external mods, which required complete retesting of all of the single engined performance. This was always done with the critical engine shut down and feathered - so lots of restarts, and a couple of single engined landings. My DA-42 Lycoming testing was also for feather/unfeather with MT's and McCauleys, if I recall, and in flight restarting, which I did dozens of times. We did have a snag in the unfeathering accumulator, which necessitated some starter restarts from feathered - lumpy. I never did any of this close to the ground, and a lot of the critical stuff within a glide to the runway.
I have tested MT props on several twins, as well as a number of other external mods, which required complete retesting of all of the single engined performance. This was always done with the critical engine shut down and feathered - so lots of restarts, and a couple of single engined landings. My DA-42 Lycoming testing was also for feather/unfeather with MT's and McCauleys, if I recall, and in flight restarting, which I did dozens of times. We did have a snag in the unfeathering accumulator, which necessitated some starter restarts from feathered - lumpy. I never did any of this close to the ground, and a lot of the critical stuff within a glide to the runway.
perhaps had a bit of an obsession about saving a few bob on fuel?
He arrived with 45 minutes of fuel on board - just a shame it was in the wrong tanks
And thats not counting the 7 litres of unusable fuel (page 14)...
