toto

This is largely off-topic, but our discussion here reminded me of this interview. Fascinating and impressive humility and performance from a P-51 pilot faced with a will-I-make-the-field-or-won't-I decision. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2018/may/17/inside-a-p-51-engine-out-off-airport-landing The video at the top of the article is only a few minutes long. The one linked from the bottom is more than a half hour. Both are very much worth a watch.

My D3000 inspection this year was $3000 at Kelly, and I seriously considered going the ElectroAir route —- but since dual mag failures are rare and they’ve been basically reliable mags for the IO-360 “D” fleet, I figured I’d rather do the next 500 hours on a D3000 than be a guinea pig for an electronic ignition. If anyone does install the ElectroAir mag, I’m very very eager to hear about it. I’m hopeful that the early adopter problems are all worked out by the time I need a new mag

Thanks @1980Mooney, that’s a super helpful analysis. So at some point between 15.5k and 2.5k, he almost certainly ran a tank dry and switched to the other tank, where he thought he had left 10 gallons of fuel - but in fact, that tank was nearly empty as well. Hard to know what his fuel quantity indication would be at that point. He must have been very confident to continue the flight. I’m still wondering whether the turn around the patch on the 10th was post-maintenance. If so, the shop might have done several ground runs, followed by a quick test hop, which could easily burn 10 gallons all in.

Ah, okay - I misunderstood. I thought you were saying this was an example where the pilot declared early.

I need to listen to the LiveATC recording - I didn’t realize that he had declared an emergency early. Was that at 13k or at 2400? Or somewhere in between?

He had a pretty consistent descent rate from 13k to the ground, so I haven’t been able to figure out where the (possible) fuel starvation occurred. Was it at 13k? Or was it at 2400? Was his original destination Peoria? Or was that a divert for bingo fuel? Iirc some of the eyewitnesses said that they heard the engine sputtering, which would suggest that the engine had some power until the very last. (But eyewitnesses aren’t necessarily reliable.)

Replying to my own message just because I'm still scratching my head about this. The pilot apparently lost power and then spent 30 minutes in a controlled descent. That's a lot of time to make a decision about a forced landing site and troubleshoot fuel system problems. It seems hard to believe that with all the green space around, he chose a city street to set down after such a long descent. I didn't hear the LiveATC recordings, but I saw a note at the beginning of the thread that a controller had suggested a highway as a potential landing site. Do we think he was gliding the whole 30 minutes thinking that he had Peoria made, and then discovered only in the last few minutes (wind shift, whatever) that the airport was outside glide radius and suddenly had very few good options in range?

This is pretty tough to watch.

I don’t like trying to deconstruct a person’s life in an accident thread, but just for the sake of the “range” discussion … it looked to me like the airplane had traveled between NY and Santa Fe before, in three hops over one day - returning Santa Fe to Missouri to Ohio to NY. It could be that the accident flight was an experiment to do the trip in two hops, from Santa Fe to Illinois to NY.

Flew five groups of Young Eagles this morning. About half of the kids had never been in an aircraft of any kind before today. If you haven’t done this, it’s a really great and rewarding experience - and it feels like a chance to influence the future of general aviation in a small way. https://youngeaglesday.org/

The aircraft had been in Santa Fe for two months, and hadn’t apparently flown until a four-minute long flight three days ago. It does make me curious whether the four-minute flight was post-maintenance. Flying for five hours definitely suggests that the plane was operating well, although it’s certainly possible that there was maintenance performed that would have affected the fuel system or quantity indication. The photos of the crash site make me wonder why the pilot chose a street surrounded by power lines. Central Illinois is one big grassy field. Ultimately this feels like a fuel starvation incident, a controlled descent for 30 minutes (with best glide for the last bit as kortopates mentioned above), and then a very inhospitable landing area.

The system for attorney’s fees we have in the US is called the “American Rule” - it's not widely followed outside the US, and it’s not uncontroversial.

I don't remember exactly what George Braly said on the subject, but it may be that the GAMI folks are pushing for the STC as an additional product validation from a respected source to counter the inevitable lawsuits down the road. Having a fleetwide STC gives at least the appearance of an official approval.

Well, you’ve already discovered my favorite resource… which is MooneySpace

They do have this form too - which probably goes to the same email account, but feels slightly more "official." https://www.aviationconsumer.com/contact-editor/