Alert Tecnam engine failure Boonah

[Guest WonWingLow]

AS to the airstrip I wished id known that was there at the time

Are pilots to know of suitable landing areas before they may need them?

 

 

[Guest WonWingLow]

then engine stopped ,fuel ***** were open and plenty of fuel radioed in to Dave and dave said to make sure that fuel was on ,by this time Craig had tried to restart engine IT WOULD NOT START he told his daughter the emergency procedures and he then looked for a suitable emergency landing spot and was at approx 1500 ft

I was watching aircrash investigators last week. They implied that initial pilot reactions in an emergency are to select a suitable landing site, get the aircraft maneuvering towards that landing and if there is time, try a restart.

Reading this incident quote, it doesn't seem to be in the right order.

 

What is the recommended procedure in pilot training?

 

 

[poteroo]

I was watching aircrash investigators last week. They implied that initial pilot reactions in an emergency are to select a suitable landing site, get the aircraft maneuvering towards that landing and if there is time, try a restart.Reading this incident quote, it doesn't seem to be in the right order.

 

What is the recommended procedure in pilot training?

Nothing has changed, as far as I know,in the 50 years I've been involved. If you want to reach a 'safe' landing area - don't stuff about with anything else other than setting up the aircraft for best glide range and making a decision on a direction to fly. Then - do the vital actions list applicable to your a/c. If none of these work - you are already setup to glide maximum distance to the initial choice of site. Only after these do you start radio calls or use TXP.

 

The most common deficiency that I see in BFR's, (GA and RAA), is failure to configure the aircraft for best glide, and failure to make a decision on direction. Most pilots do a great job on running a vital actions checklist, and giving a detailed mayday. Just as well too - because the forced landing is going to become a wreck!

 

happy days,

 

 

[Turbo_Boss]

I was watching aircrash investigators last week. They implied that initial pilot reactions in an emergency are to select a suitable landing site, get the aircraft maneuvering towards that landing and if there is time, try a restart.

I will add that as soon as you have selected a suitable landing site, just focus on that site and dont change your mind.

 

I experice a engine failure one time were my Rotax 912 was with a problem similar to fuel starvation. The engine was only giving me 4,200 RPM and some times wants to die. I was at 2,500 feet and I saw a golf field were I say in my mind I going to land there and belive me, I was thinking in my mind what exactly I was going to do when I was near that field. Then I radio my other friends that was flying with me and explaning the problem and that I was going to land on the golf field.

 

Then, one of my friend say, no, land on the hi way over there, then other toll me, no, land in that other place...........

 

I shout over the radio: I will go for the Golf Field, thats it!

 

So in my experience, if you figure out were you going to land on and emergency, just focus on that site and think what you going to do exactly when you are close to that site.

 

BTW, I was in complete calm doing my emergency landing BUT as soon I land and I got out of the plane, my legs was shacking like hell:beg:

 

Then we find that my engine was suffering from Vapor Lock. At that time my engine does not have a Fuel return line to the tank. I intall that line and also a AUX electric fuel pump. From that day, I have not experienced any problem.

 

Isaac

 

 

 

 

 

[ayavner]

very glad to hear of the outcome... just a thought, the one Tecnam I have flown did not have carby heat (p96 golf). Could that have been an issue? If so, is it likely you will ever find out?

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Hell I've always seen golf courses as just emergency landing areas anyway. Who the hell would want to wrap up so much real estate just to play paddock billiards !. One of our pilots here owned a golf course north of town, and we used to land on one of the fairways.............just like landing on a billiard table !...and a lot of fun shooting final over the heads of golfers waiting to tee off..........................................................................Maj...

 

 

[Turbo_Boss]

Hell I've always seen golf courses as just emergency landing areas anyway. Who the hell would want to wrap up so much real estate just to play paddock billiards !. One of our pilots here owned a golf course north of town, and we used to land on one of the fairways.............just like landing on a billiard table !...and a lot of fun shooting final over the heads of golfers waiting to tee off..........................................................................Maj...

I remeber when I was going to land in that golf course to check for any golfers playing. But later they (Golfers) toll me that they saw me flying in circles over the field and they inmediately know my airplane was in trouble because They hear the engine RPM sounding extrange, so they was keeping and eye on me:yikes:

 

As soon I land, there was like hundred of golf cars around me and the golfers asking me if I was OK. Everybody took there camera and take pictures with the UL.

 

I leave the UL sleeping there and got there the next day with some flying club members and we check everything, change fuel, etc, etc............We ran the engine for several minutes and then I take off. The idea was to fly over the golf field for several minutes and if the problem comes again, then I land.

 

When I tell the golfers that I was going to take off, nobody belive that the UL can take off in that small space............. So again, everybody took there cameras and beguin to video........... I take off in around 50 feets and then fly to my club field without any problem.

 

My advise to everybody is to fly always on top of places that you know you can land in case of emergency. Eaven if is going to take more time to get to where you want to go, ALWAYS try to fly were you can have a place to land............ Is there is a part that there is no place to land, then what I do is got to a higher altitude in order to have more time to glide and choose a spot.

 

For example, there is a island that if you fly in a straight line from our club field to that island, you can made it in around +/- 40 minutes.......But between that island and our club field, there is jungle! What I do always is to take the longer way. I fly over the hi way and then at the end of tha hio way, I make a right and fly bordering the shore line until I get to that island.

 

Isaac

 

 

[facthunter]

Good stuff Isaac. Nev

 

 

[Guest WonWingLow]

Nothing has changed, as far as I know,in the 50 years I've been involved. If you want to reach a 'safe' landing area - don't stuff about with anything else other than setting up the aircraft for best glide range and making a decision on a direction to fly. Then - do the vital actions list applicable to your a/c. If none of these work - you are already setup to glide maximum distance to the initial choice of site. Only after these do you start radio calls or use TXP. The most common deficiency that I see in BFR's, (GA and RAA), is failure to configure the aircraft for best glide, and failure to make a decision on direction. Most pilots do a great job on running a vital actions checklist, and giving a detailed mayday. Just as well too - because the forced landing is going to become a wreck!

happy days,

Great, I hope this is the sort of thing that gets included in pilot training in Australia. I looked on the New Zealand aviation website (http://www.caa.govt.nz/fig/circuit-training/forced-landing-without-power-pattern.html) and see that they include it as part of pilot training. First sentence is 'set for best glide' then choice of landing site.

I appreciate the thoughts of others to set their mind to the landing and deal with radio etc if time permits.

 

So I guess lessons to learn:

 

Engine failures are going to happen, for whatever reason...be prepared.

 

Include this in pilot training

 

Include it in a licence test

 

Include it in regular reviews, discussions, magazine articles.

 

Would it be better for a pilot to follow their training which presumable is designed to give them maximum options?

 

WWL

 

 

[facthunter]

The link covers a LOT of things but omits some I would include. I suggest it wouldn't be optional for a draggy plane, where significant wind strength plays a major role, in how you would go about it. I agree forced landings should emphasised but I always thought they were. More can always be done in that area. Maximum options? I don't quite follow that one. Just getting best L/D speed might waste time if you should be initiating a turn, (towards the coast for instance). or if you are on downwind. Nev

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Frankly, I'm shocked at what I'm hearing here, I was taught and then went on to teach the following -

 

As part of pre-flight planning you should survey the planned route, in particular the kind of terrain and vegetation that will be encountered and note all alternate landing grounds. Surely that should be so much easier these days? With Google Earth available to almost everyone it'd be a smart thing to have a good look at the area where you plan to fly and note the clear areas and the tiger country, and the airstrips, and put them in your GPS.

 

Goto 'nearest' is a wonderful function if you haven't been groundcrawling properly and are suddenly under pressure managing a dead engine.

 

At all times whilst airborne Rule 1 is to always have a landing place already chosen, leapfrogging them as you progress along your route, then when it stops you already know where you're going to land. Rule 2 is to keep a lookout behind so as not to get trapped by weather.

 

When (not if) the engine stops then the first thing is establish the glide, second brief your pax if you have them, third broadcast callsign, situation, position, PoB, intentions. Fourth attempt a re-start if likely and sufficient height. Fifth, survey the landing site - surface, slope, obstacles, wind etc, then land and report on ground.

 

So why are all these folks flying around blindly and waiting until the engine stops to start choosing a crash erm landing site?

 

 

[turboplanner]

Come on HITC, unless you are talking about the immediate take off vicinity, what you are suggesting put underlying pressure on for glide stretching and we lost a few pilots last year who didn't manage to keep their aircraft in the air, let alone land on tiger country.

 

You can't pre plan where an engine is going to fail - things go wrong when you least expect them, and while an engine may fail, and you may immediately see an airfield within the glideslope the percentages of that happening are very very slim - maybe even below 5%. As mentioned above, the key is to set glide trim, then find a clear piece of land. You won't do this trying to remember what to punch into a GPS. If you are flying low time is very limited by the time you've reacted to your disbelief, so what happens when before you there is no sign of any "already chosen" landing place?

 

 

[facthunter]

That approach is entirely correct for a thing like a Cessna Caravan.

 

With glide ratios around 9 and often flying at quite low altitudes you can choose the type of terrain you fly over but you cannot guarantee specific aerodromes, paddocks. You can use road verges tracks beaches etc. Avoiding tiger ( Heavily wooded and/or steep sloped country is prudent as you are unlikely to avoid serious injury or worse there.

 

There are quite a few reasons to do a forced landing other than engine failure and you don't have to land in a straight line either. Time rather than height might be the factor there. Nev

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Come on HITC, unless you are talking about the immediate take off vicinity, what you are suggesting put underlying pressure on for glide stretching and we lost a few pilots last year who didn't manage to keep their aircraft in the air, let alone land on tiger country.You can't pre plan where an engine is going to fail - things go wrong when you least expect them, and while an engine may fail, and you may immediately see an airfield within the glideslope the percentages of that happening are very very slim - maybe even below 5%. As mentioned above, the key is to set glide trim, then find a clear piece of land. You won't do this trying to remember what to punch into a GPS. If you are flying low time is very limited by the time you've reacted to your disbelief, so what happens when before you there is no sign of any "already chosen" landing place?

I think you've missed the point, I probably didn't make it clear.

 

The pre-flight planning makes you familiar with the kind of terrain to expect and it's useful to know about any airstrips or good landing areas that may be in your intended path, and they can be found using google earth, (all we used to have were the WACs, VTCs etc) and that puts you ahead of the game and I use anything I can to put luck on my side.

 

But I didn't mean that you only use those pre-discovered places as your forced landing sites. I believe that on any flight you should always be looking for and choosing forced landing places and as you fly out of reach of one you choose another one and so on. As you see ones that you pre-entered on your GPS come into reach you might decide to use that as your next stepping stone, it's better to have a forced landing on an airstrip if one happens to be there than hope there aren't logs, ditches or anthills in the paddock you choose.

 

And for heavens sake - why wait until the engine stops before starting to look for an outlanding place? That's plain dumb in my book. It's simply because an engine 'may fail at any time' that you should be looking for outlandings in advance, in case you need them, and even more so if you're flying low.

 

Before I started in ultralights thirty years ago I'd only ever flown without power in hanggliders and gliders so I always flew with my outlanding planned at all times. Then in early ultralights our converted industrial engines used to stop about every three or four flight hours, so it was essential on frequent occasions to know where you were going to put it down. With all those 'events' under my belt, and then following through into a professional flying career I've had a total of nearly fifty forced landings in fixed- and rotary-wing and never once had to look where to land because I've always known where I'm going to go in advance of the situation. And gladly I've not bent an aircraft yet even though most of my ops have been in rugged and remote areas. So I'm happy with my method which has served me well. I can't imagine the stress that'd be involved if you had to suddenly start looking for an outlanding in the busy times of managing an engine out, tailrotor failure or similar malfunction.

 

So what do folks spend their time doing while flying along, if not looking for open spaces along their track?

 

 

[facthunter]

Your early experience has fixed that in your method of operating and that is good. I say" don't fly over what you can't land on" which is similar but when you fly at low level across country your aim is to survive rather than guarantee a good landing. On unfamiliar territory you do look for the best opportunities and I even climb up in a spiral to get enough height to clear high terrain that is too rough if necessary to have the glide capability. I'm not sure the message gets through to all of todays aviators. Their risk taking genes may be more dominant. I SAY Only gamble when you can afford to lose. Nev

 

 

[M61A1]

Your early experience has fixed that in your method of operating and that is good. I say" don't fly over what you can't land on" which is similar but when you fly at low level across country your aim is to survive rather than guarantee a good landing. On unfamiliar territory you do look for the best opportunities and I even climb up in a spiral to get enough height to clear high terrain that is too rough if necessary to have the glide capability. I'm not sure the message gets through to all of todays aviators. Their risk taking genes may be more dominant. I SAY Only gamble when you can afford to lose. Nev

I get the impression, of late, that there are some pilots out there who believe that that fact that someone else built their aircraft and gave them a factory certification, will mean that all the safety implications fall back on the manufacturer or their maintainer, and that there is no responsibility on their part to operate the machine in a manner that will provide a margin of safety(in regard to engine failure). I do think that it is up to the pilot to decide the level of risk they are willing to accept, but they also need to remember they are deciding for their passengers also. For myself, my meager craft is not expensive, but I can't afford to replace it, I can less afford to be injured unnecessarily. So for me it is "don't fly over what I can't land on", as well as having a place already chosen, so as to give myself the best chance of no damage to myself or my aircraft.

[Guest WonWingLow]

Maximum options? I don't quite follow that one.

OK, thanks for that consideration. When I said maximum options, I'm thinking of a concept of the more sky (height) and thus time available, allows more options for the pilot to consider. So in the OP situation, spending time looking at restarts and radioing back to someone else, was time when he could have been identifying the airstrip that was possibly in his glide area, at least having more choices as to places to land and more time to consider the approach.

 

 

[facthunter]

It is all a question of priorities WWL My examples have a low height presumption

 

At cruise levels abv 5,000' you have quite a lot of time to play with. The NZ document you refer to seeks to cover all the possibilities. The first thing you must do is be situationally aware. Question 1 what do I have going for me? You have a plane that still responds to control movements. So FLY the plane.

 

response #2 point it where you get the best situation you can expect from what you have going for you

 

This relates to the old sequence...aviate (fly it) Navigate ( point it). communicate IF you have time.

 

The troubleshooting thing is contentious. If it works well you might just fly away and carry on as normal, but you must fly the plane as a priority IF the engine stops with a heap of obvious destruction noises why would you attempt a restart? IF it stops because of a faulty selection of the fuel selector you are sweet if you correct it. Nev

 

 

[Viper]

I was watching aircrash investigators last week. They implied that initial pilot reactions in an emergency are to select a suitable landing site, get the aircraft maneuvering towards that landing and if there is time, try a restart.Reading this incident quote, it doesn't seem to be in the right order.

 

What is the recommended procedure in pilot training?

Just read your post wwl

The sequence of order of events was not written by me, and I can asure you that the landing site was chosen and the plane was in a glide before any communication was carried out.

 

 

[Guest WonWingLow]

Just read your post wwlThe sequence of order of events was not written by me, and I can asure you that the landing site was chosen and the plane was in a glide before any communication was carried out.

Ok thanks for clarifying. Seems that some of the early posts may have been made in haste. Looking back now, with the benefit of time, what are your thoughts about the event, your in flight reactions and the benefit of some of the very experienced pilots whom have added their thoughts?

 

 

[Viper]

Ok thanks for clarifying. Seems that some of the early posts may have been made in haste. Looking back now, with the benefit of time, what are your thoughts about the event, your in flight reactions and the benefit of some of the very experienced pilots whom have added their thoughts?

Looking back on events things I would do, fly at a height that allows time to respond and suits the relevant terrain below , Fully appreciate that it is not a case of if the engine will fail but when and plan and prepare before flight and during including relevant landing sites. I Realize now that the only real way that i would fully appreciate how important the training is is to experience it . The two CFIs I trained under had a combined total of over 37000 hrs and neither had experienced a forced landing I have only done 100 hrs . I feel good about the fact I got the plane down and we walked away as to what i would change lets hope it never happen but if it does I would fly as I have said above and if it happens respond faster and hopefully have the same outcome The experienced pilots on this forum are a wealth of information and I can assure you I have taken alot of advice on board that can only help my flying I do think that the culture of casualness shown by some pilots to engine failure is something that was obviously derived from the early years but I do thinks that for our sport this is something that should be addressed to help the stigma that LSA aircraft have not just in the public view but some GA pilots s

 

 

[Gentreau]

I've just read through this thread for the first time and above all want to say to Viper, BLOODY GOOD JOB MATE !

 

Remember the Royal Navy Air Arm saying:

 

"A good landing is one you walk away from, an excellent landing is one you walk away from and can fly the plane again within 24hrs"

 

I don't know you Viper, but I'm very glad to hear that with only 100hrs, you had the ability to save yourself and your daughter, as someone else said, call your instructor and congratulate them on doing a good job. I'm sure there are things you could have done differently, but those don't matter a toss, as you made the decisions you did while in the situation with limited time, and you clearly made good decisions judging by the result.

 

To those of you who are posting on procedures with hindsight, be very careful what you say. It's way too easy to criticise the actions of someone else from your armchair. How many of us have actually been through a real engine failure ? Also remember that only Viper has been through that particular failure at that particular place.

 

 

[JimG]

Well said, Gentreau, in my view what you have written sums the event up perfectly and I couldn't agree more..!

 

Thanks for that post.

 

JimG

 

 

[Guest Swanny]

Hi Viper you did we'll to walk away from that. I had a look at the wreck and the cockpit was well intact.the floor held up well after loosing the undercarriage. They tried to start the motor no go so L2 arrived also a LAME ,they checked timing and other things no go then replaced both CDI units one try and it burst into life. L2 said he has had some CDI fail of late . Can I say keep an on the rev drop when checking Magneto it may be your only indication something is wrong.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

Hi Viper you did we'll to walk away from that. I had a look at the wreck and the cockpit was well intact.the floor held up well after loosing the undercarriage. They tried to start the motor no go so L2 arrived also a LAME ,they checked timing and other things no go then replaced both CDI units one try and it burst into life. L2 said he has had some CDI fail of late . Can I say keep an on the rev drop when checking Magneto it may be your only indication something is wrong.

This is really great to get some info, thanks Swanny.

 

Not meaning to be picky but I'm a bit confused about the "they checked timing and other things no go then replaced both CDI units one try and it burst into life". Does this mean that the original CDIs were working but with a weak spark? If not do you know how they checked the timing without a spark?