B36TC Crankshaft seal
I had one of these. One day I was cruising at I think about 22,000 in the vicinity of Santa Cruz Island when suddenly the windscreen started developing a coating of oil. Being about 20 miles from Oxnard I had plenty of altitude to get there even if the engine quit, and the weather was severe clear. So I throttled all the way back, pulled the pitch lever all the way back, declared a PAN, and basically glided to a landing without incident.
What happened was the propellor shaft oil seal from the crankcase failed. There were 3 quarts of oil left, the engine was undamaged; but the mechanic said "this is not unusual in these turbo-boosted engines". From the time of the windshield clouding over to shutdown was probably about 12 minutes, so 9 of 12 (if i remember correctly) quarts lost pretty darned fast. I imagine it would have been much faster had we not had the luxury of pulling back to idle and coming as close as we could to feathering the prop.
The scary thing is 2 nights before, I had flown Ontario to Oxnard, full IMC-rain, about 11 at night,and broke out 50 feet above DH. If the seal had failed then, I might not be here to tell the story. It was quite a wake-up call.
That aircraft was N67799. I think it is out on the east coast somewhere now. But if it's any help, it should have a maintenance record of the incident.
Last edited by thcrozier; 14th January 2014 at 01:18.