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I think many of the suggestions are possible, but for my guess it sounds most like some vaporized fuel in the line. One time I had a similar experience shortly after I had GAMIjectors installed and my mechanic was right at the field that day, so we took a look and there was a tiny little clog you could barely see with a magnifying glass. I've heard it's common to pick up a tiny piece of crud that stays in just the wrong place until you take pressure off the throttle and push it in again, then maybe things just pass through. I doubt the atmospheric guesses. But everything is a guess.

When I first bought my '89 J my son in the right seat remarked that he could see blue sky through a crack at the top of the door. I thought that maybe the door was bent a bit and pointed it out to my mechanic. The mechanic ordered a wonderful little gadget that forced a good solid close every time. First he installed a metal plate a few inches long that was shaped in a small curve that followed the door frame but had a small oval hole in it. The other piece was a pointed metal tube attached to the door that is about three inches long. When you close the door, the tube is at an angle so that it enters the oval hole on the door frame and gets the door progressively tighter as the main latch is closed. The result is a much tighter door that truly saves noise and drafts. I haven't spent much time in other Mooneys to know that this little latch is common or not, but it sure did the trick.

No, there was no fuel pressure indication before I started the engine and when taxiing there was virtually no indication either. That was normal. However, during my climb in solid fog I was busy flying the airplane and never really looked to see if I was showing fuel pressure. After about four minutes in the air I could smell smoke and less than a half minute later the engine stopped. My experience was that I thought I had partial power for the best part of a minute, but I know now the engine was dead. Everything sounded the same for a bit and the prop adjusts to keep the same RPM, so it takes a moment to discover that you're gliding. Of course after the work was done I did some fast taxi and the mags seemed to work just fine, so it was a real surprise when the engine died. I had already been cleared for the approach into MVY as it was only 20 miles away. ATC told me to "maintain 1,500" even though I had filed for 2,000 ft.

Byron, The NTSB accident report was Oct. 15th 2004. I had a hot mag and the IA who fixed it failed to reconnect the fuel pressure gauge and rerouted the fuel line out of place. He had to remove the fuel line to reach the left mag. As a result fuel was spraying like perfume into the engine bay and when the exhaust manifold got hot enough POOF! I could feel the "poof" in my ears, and the fire burned the leads to the spark plugs and killed the engine. The worst part was that the fire also burned the main vacuum hose so I had to make a U-turn over Nantucket Sound with partial panel in order to make it back to land. I used to commute most every day from Martha's Vineyard to Hyannis on Cape Cod and back.

Nels, this is a truly silly question. Keep things under control and simple. Don't give up the control the engine gives you. Back in 2004 when I suffered an engine failure and fire in hard IFR conditions I chose to land gear up and was lucky enough to find a golf course. The prop kept turning cutting up chunks of earth and helped absorb energy to slow down the plane ending up the very shortest landing distance of my life. Both blades were bent far back and I wouldn't have ever wanted it any other way. Life is too precious to give the slightest concern to a prop or crankshaft.

IMC or VMC is not "just flying". Lose your engine in IMC like the poor guy we discussed with the Bonanza who crashed in Plainville, MA or my own experience where the mechanic failed to correctly reinstall the fuel pressure gauge resulting in a fire that killed the engine, and the result in hard IMC is likely to be very different vs. VMC. Clearly, you are very experienced and therefore it sounds like you may be a bit complacent regarding risks to equivocate both IMC and VMC as "just flying"'. My opinion only, but complacency, even when related to competency, is another risk to manage. .

Remember, what you see, is what is there right now (maybe). What you will get is what develops when you get there. My flying involved hundreds of flights every day to commute from island to mainland and the flights were only twenty minutes or less. So I have many hundreds of instrument approaches in serious fog, but I never got used to flying hundreds of miles crossing cold fronts. If you create a record of being too careful over many years you have a great record. If you think that the chance of having serious problems is less than one chance in a hundred, then you can expect to have serious problems if you do that something hundreds of times.

It's my personal opinion that pilots talking to pilots about the circumstances leading up to a fatal accident and the causes of accidents and perhaps advice as to what could have been done to save lives is always good, so long that the effort is to educate ourselves and help save lives. I think the limit comes when any of us speculates on the cause of the accident when there's not the slightest bit of evidence of the cause. Guessing that the pilot died because he ran out of fuel when there was no evidence of that fact is just plain wrong. Sometimes well-meaning pilots speculate to the media or other non-pilots about the causes or circumstances of an accident, but because the public contains such a small percentage of pilots, even the truth can be misleading. Such comments as "The pilot failed to file a flight plan." can lead a non-pilot to think the pilot made a mistake. Even telling the public that the pilot took off into dense fog, can sound as a criticism of the wisdom of the pilot. For this reason I think it's better to allow the media to deal with the authorities and the final causes as determined by the NTSB. Preliminary information published by the NTSB is well within the realm of discussion for pilots talking to other pilots. We all understand that new information can change how we think about an accident, but prompt discussions while much of the information is fresh in our minds can be quite helpful. Whenever the NTSB includes word-for-word quotes of the pilot and ATC in a preliminary accident review the words are not likely to change. No pilot plans to die, so every mistake made should be forgiven, but we need to learn from every mistake or possibility to save a life. Throughout the thirty years I've been flying I have seen pilots that make many mistakes and live through them. Personally, I think we should also talk about those mistakes, even if it means talking straight to the pilot. I knew a pilot who loved to "buzz" friends' houses and the beach and I told him not to do it or I would report him. He hates me now, but no more buzzing. Maybe I saved a life.

Hank, thanks for your explanation. I hope it all works out with the new planes Mooney makes. However, I'm pretty sure the Beech Sierra tanks were also built without "square" tanks in the wing. I remember seeing the ribs at the bottom of my tanks. Either way, putting the sealant in the joints and putting the wing together with improved sealant sounds like a "fix" to me.

One thing I can't figure out about Mooneys is that if it's a simple airplane that any A&P can fix the fuel leaks to stay fixed, then why don't they fix 'em first at the factory? I bought a six year old Beech Sierra back in '89 and flew if for fifteen years and nearly 3,000 hours and never saw the slightest leak nor did I ever get the slightest whiff of fuel in the cabin. Then I moved to a J model six years newer than the Beech and suffered leaks just months after I bought it. I guess the previous owner must have made a few patches and then the leaks came. Right now I think there are two companies that spend almost all their time fixing Mooney leaks and that doesn't include all the Mooney owners with bladders. Then throw in all the owners who try to keep patching or who simply ignore the leaks and you have one chronic problem. Why can't the factory fix this problem. They've had decades!!

I think it's great you brought back a three year old thread. Now I can tell you that I've gone six years without a leak after using Weep No More.

Maybe I missed something, but how did you manage to take photos from outside the plane?

To tell you the truth Byron, I had two accidents mixed up in my mind. I remember the Ovation accident now. The son of the passenger was a student in my wife's science class. On a brighter note, there was a great accident this past July 1st in Mackay Idaho. A student pilot flying a Cheetah, flew into a dead end valley and tried to fly straight ahead and out above the ridge line. He failed to fly at best angle airspeed because he reported that he heard the stall warning buzzer going on and off. But in the end the report shows he crashed into trees in mountainous terrain and was uninjured. - Obviously forward speed is the big determination of initial survival. Personally, I'd rather land in water if land was nearby.

Generally speaking I think a landing into the wind, gear up flaps down, would be the better initial result. However, I saw a Mooney that crashed into large waves off Martha's Vineyard and the windshield was gone and it looked like it hit a stone wall. Both inside were dead.