One more, then I'm through
Not accident, not really an incident. But I did have an engine fire on a DC-3 that was really not a fire. But it got my attention.
We’d borrowed a DC-3 to use with ours to take a group of VVIPs to Western Oklahoma to show off the completion of a super deep natural gas well, over 27,000 feet deep. We do the trip and I am taking the borrowed DC-3 back to its home airport. My co-pilot had seen a DC-3 maybe three-four times in his life, matter of fact all of his time in DC-3s was on this VVIP trip that day. He ended up as MD-11 captain for FedEx.
I takeoff and make a left turn that would take us to the home airport for this DC-3. I level off at 5,500 feet and set cruise power. So there I am, fat dumb and happy looking around, listening to the roar of those two magnificent Pratt and Whitney 1820s humming away. As I am looking outside I turn to look at that marvel of 1930s technology, all the moving parts banging away in some kind of harmony that only the lovers of round motors can know and appreciate. As I am viewing this marvelous miracle I notice that the paint on the rear of the engine cowling is bubbling.
BUBBLING? ‘Now why in the hell would the paint on an engine cowl bubble?’ I ask myself. As I start to look at the Cylinder head and oil temperature it hits me, FIRE! I look up at the fire light and it stares back at me darkly. ****, I yell “FIRENUMBERONEENGINECHECKLIST”. Then I started going through the memory items “Number one throttle”, co-pilot “check” closed the number one throttle, “Number one mixture” “check” cut the mixture on number one, “Number one Prop full back” “check” number one prop back to the stop. “Number one feather button” “check” pushed and prop feathered. “Run the engine fire/failure/shutdown check list, I have the radios for now.”
Now while we were shutting down the engine I had started a slow turn to the left to go back to home base, it was the closest and we were set up for a left downwind from the southeast and we were about 25 miles away for a south landing, no problem, practiced this a lot. I call approach, tell them of the situation and they cleared us for a visual approach to 17L. Sounded good to me. About this time the guy in the right seat announces that he had finished the checklist and that everything was done except firing the bottle, as we never had smoke or saw fire, so I was holding the bottle in reserve. The paint bubbling stopped the second the engine was shut down.
Well here we were, flying along, one engine caged the other purring like a kitty when the co-pilot yells at me that the paint on the cowling on number two was bubbling. I almost turned around to see if Ernie Gann was standing in the cockpit behind us. The guy in the right seat, not thinking, reached for the number two throttle. I stopped him and told him that we would most likely need that engine for a while longer. With perfect timing approach called right then and told us to contact the tower. I told the guy in the right seat to tell approach that we were landing downwind on 35R. Approach called back and told us we were cleared to land any runway. I’m still at 5,500 feet and I’m not going to descend an inch until I know that I can make a runway with no power at all. Thinking as hard as I could I could not recall ever being a glider pilot or even taken one lousy lesson. The guy in the right seat taps me on the shoulder and then tells me that the paint is turning black. I ask him if he sees any smoke or fire and has it spread back past the engine to the wing. 20 miles to go.
Now I’m looking for a good field to park this thing in if he sees smoke, fire or if the wing behind the engine is showing and signs of fire or damage. From his seat he cannot see anything, so I tell him to run back to cabin and see if there is anything that I can use as a ‘There I was Story’ at happy hour. He unbuckles, jumps out of his seat and like a shot goes back to the cabin. He comes back very quickly shaking his head no. Well there two way to take that no, we’re going to live or we’re going to die. Yeah, I can get melodramatic at times. It was no as in he didn't see anything. Now I’ve got the right engine pulled back to where we are barely maintaining 5,500 feet. 15 miles to go.
I cannot figure out why we have fires in both engine, this thing made the three hour round trip without a hiccup, even though I didn’t fly it, I flew ours. The reason I was flying it now was because I lost a coin toss as to who would fly it back and I lost. I make one of those command decisions and tell the future MD-11 captain who is in the right seat that as the winds were light that we’d make a straight in to runway 30. He looks at me and said it sounded good to him and to carry on. Still no sign of a fire, just some sort of overheat on both engines. I must say that he was taking all of this very calmly, good kid. 10 miles to go.
We tell the tower of our plans and we can see the emergency equipment pulling from 35R and heading over to 30. I really hope that we don’t crash, because if we survive the firemen will most likely drown us in that foam they have in the trucks. Not much happens for those guys and they can get real excited when they think that they can cover an aircraft in foam. I make a slight left turn to line up on 30 and make realizes I have made a horrible mistake. One that can kill us. 5 miles to go
If there is an aircraft in the world that you never want to have to lose a lot of altitude in a hurry, it would be the DC-3. I call gear down and pull right engine back to idle. I tell the guy in the right seat to go to full flaps. Nope, not losing enough altitude fast enough. So I go into a side slip, nobody ever told me you couldn’t sideslip a DC-3, so I did and by God it was working. The CFR chief later told me that when I started the sideslip he thought we were going to crash for sure. 2 miles to go
I kick it out of the side slip about a half mile final and pass over the end of the runway at about a hundred feet, a little high but the runway is 7,000 feet long, so plenty of room to stop. Shockingly, at least to me anyway I grease it on and we stop about mid-field on the center line, another shock. I tell the guy who is going to buy me Scotch at happy hour that night, who is also in the right seat to help me shut this thing down and get out of here before we get covered with foam. In short order we are out of the DC-3 waving down the fire trucks not to cover the DC-3 in foam, they do not. Now, what the hell happened? The FBO that we are based with was waiting with a car and tug with a DC-3 towbar. Now the problem is, this is not my aircraft, we borrowed for this trip. I’ve not a clue where the owner is and want to know what the hell happened to both engines. My mechanic, Terry, had been headed to a bar when he saw us coming back in, so he turned around and headed back to the hangar where he was waiting for us. As they parked the DC-3 on a tie-down.
Terry grabs his tool box and heads out to the DC-3 telling me he didn’t care who owned it as he was off duty and by God he was going find out what happened to cause both engines to do what they did. He goes to the left engine, looks through the open cowl flaps (we’d opened them after landing). Then he motions me over. “I don’t need to open her up, look at the exhaust manifold.” I did, the exhaust manifold had separated allowing raw exhaust to blow on the engine cowling causing the overheat condition. Why had this happened, whoever install the exhaust the last time, used nuts that plastic lock washers on the end of the nuts. The plastic melted, the nuts vibrated back out and caused the exhaust manifold to come apart. The reason the fire warning did not sound was because somehow the idiots that used plastic washers on the exhaust manifold hooked the fire warning up where it would test, but not actually detect a fire of overheat condition like we had encountered.
The conversation with the owner was very interesting. But I’d bet that his conversation with his maintenance people was a lot more interesting.
Oh, and I bought the poor guy I almost killed his booze that night.
The moral of this story, things are not always what they seem.