Originally Posted by
Chimbu chuckles
.. I am reminded of the fact that if you take all the fuel exhaustion events out of the engine 'failure' statistics actual forced landings from mechanical causes are extremely rare ..
True indeed, but none-the-less common enough to keep us cautious and respectful!
If the requlators were a little more pro-active then the engine failure rate would be even lower.
How many pilots (and pax) would have been saved the stress of a forced landing (or worse) if a fix of the recent faulty crankshaft problem had been mandated (at the manufacturers expense!) as soon as it became apparent?
A few years ago my brother had a head separate from a cylinder in his Mooney resulting in a forced landing. Aircraft purchased new, well maintained, flown by only a handful of experienced pilots. Apparently it was a not uncommon failure with a batch of cylinders.
And I still have the image of a C206 on the ground at Lockhart River aerodrome etched in my brain. There was a big hole in the cowling where one of the cylinders had departed the aircraft.
Fortunately both of the above had a happy ending - at least as far as the persons on board were concerned.
FTDC