Jabiru 2200 Engine Failure - Forced Landing on the Beach

[duarte07]

A partial power loss due to a Jabiru 2200 engine failure forced me to land my Alpi Aviation Pioneer 200 (CS-UPK) at low tide on an empty beach in Portugal ...
Wonderful landing, without a scratch ...
No. 3 cylinder exhaust valve adjuster jumped out of its seat during flight ...
More details, pictures, video and portuguese authorities (GPIAA) official report in my blog:

(http://portugalfotografiaaerea.********.com/search/label/Aterragem%20For%C3%A7ada)Pictures of the Forced Landing, Video, Official Report (http://tinyurl.com/6ge9mup)

and

Pictures of Jabiru 2200 Cylinder Head and loosened Valve Adjuster (http://tinyurl.com/3cbbtb6)

PS: Use google-translator bar on the right side of the blog page to get english text version ...

[dublinpilot]

Links don't work.

[Deeday]

Links don't work.Frigging PPRuNe software that for reasons untold replaces every occurrence of "b l o g s p o t" with ********.
Try these:

A Terceira Dimensão - Fotografia Aérea: Aterragem Forçada (http://tinyurl.com/jabiru-failure-1)

A Terceira Dimensão - Fotografia Aérea: Avaria de Motor (http://tinyurl.com/jabiru-failure-2)

Nice pictures by the way.

[B2N2]

Nice job Duarte, well done

[duarte07]

Thanks for the link correction, Deeday. Now they work ...

[SEP Flyer]

Well done on a great landing! :D

I'm not a mechanic or engineer, but I'm still amazed that we fly with engines that cost many, many thousands of pounds, and yet who does not fly with one ear on the engine sound, eyes on dials for potential problems and a regular look out for a suitable field (or beach!) to land in!

Would (retro)fitting FADEC to AVgas planes be a feasible option? I flew a diesel PA28 with FADEC and it made monitoring the engine a joy, and the flight 'felt' safer and so more enjoyable, knowing a computer would warn you if there was a problem.

Any thoughts?

[duarte07]

It unscrewed progressively and quite quickly. It took about 3 to 5 minutes between the time I detected the right cylinder head temperature gauge started going down and the definitive jump of the adjuster from its seat. As soon as that happened, the Jab engine started shaking like hell (working only on 3 cylinders), which obliged me to set the power down to avoid a berth crack. If that would have happened, I surely wouldn't be here to write these lines ...
:ok:

[Jan Olieslagers]

ISTR some vehement complaints about the low reliability of these engines?

[duarte07]

We were not able to prove that this problem occured due to neglected maintainance. We found out later that this Jabiru 2200 engine had been involved in a crash some years before in the Azores. One week before my forced landing on the beach, the cylinder heads #3 and #4 had been removed for a broken piston repair. I guess the mechanic didn't do his job properly reassembling the engine. It flew only about 3 hours after that repair.
:=