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willowbrook

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  1. Some of you will be aware that over the last two weeks a flight training school in New Zealand has suffered two Jabiru catastrophic engine failures. One 2200 engine broke a through bolt that resulted in a cylinder being destroyed but no other damage. Both this and the 3300 engine had flown approx 880 hours, all since Feb this year. The second failure was much more serious and opens a significant question for us all as regulators and administrators of sport aviation involving Jabiru aircraft. The 3300 engine as mentioned had a total of 880 hours and was fitted with the doweled crankshaft to flywheel attachment. I am sure we had all hoped that the dowels had resolved the flywheel attachment failures but after four years of trouble free operations in NZ this engine has suffered fractured cap screws resulting in loss of ignition and valve timing. The pistons have struck the valves during the event. In the forced landing that followed extensive damage was inflicted on the airframe but the pilot was uninjured. Had the failure occurred during other phases of this flight the aircraft would have been lost at sea. CAA have contacted Jabiru and CASA and further follow up joint work will follow. At this stage CAA has drafted an Airworthiness Directive that will be released on 25 November 2010 which proposes a finite life of 500 hours on the subject cap screws. The AD in New Zealand will apply to their members. I believe CASA will issue a similar AD and RAAus may wish to take similar action. CAA considers the flywheel failure a critical safety of flight issue which becomes even more significant as both of the aircraft involved in these failures were LSA’s operating full time on flight training. This is the tenth flywheel attachment failure we have experienced in NZ with one aircraft suffering the failure twice. These latest failures like most of the others occurred on standard Jabiru installations ie Jabiru props. I suspect there will be some reaction from your members who operate the jabiru and who may not have heard of the accidents and may approach you to find out the background to the AD. I hope this message goes some way to explaining why this action has been necessary. CAA
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