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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.

My family has owned a home in Falmouth for 40 yrs and I live on the Vineyard. My advice is to avoid 5B6 and land in Hyannis. The runway at 5B6 is less than 2300 ft long and only 40 ft wide. There are plenty of trees close in at each end of the runway and if there's a crosswind the air tobbles over the trees on either side. If you have a decent SW wind as is common in the summer, then landing on 25 is fine, but if you want to make the safest decision think twice before landing at 5B6. Good luck and fly safe.

This accident in Plainville, MA feels very close to me. For nine-and-a-half years I commuted almost every business day from Martha's Vineyard to Norwood, MA (OWD) which was the pilot's destination. I have just over 300 instrument approaches into OWD and every one of them was the LOC RWY 35 approach. Given the fact that the wind was reported as 010 I feel sure that was what the pilot intended. The address of the accident was 25 Bridle Path Plainville, so I tried to determine what road ATC was vectoring the pilot to. I think Rt. 1 might have been to the pilot's right and that road has buildings and businesses on both sides of the road and would not be the best place to head for. In my opinion, ATC often directs the pilot to an airport far too distant or to a road that on average would be too far away or just a bad choice. When the pilot says, "I need help" and ATC doesn't have any knowledge of how far the plane can glide into the wind, or what the pilot can expect when reaching the destination he is being vectored to, the natural instinct to begin maneuvering where ATC has advised is very strong. Sometimes, in stormy conditions ATC will tell the pilot something like, "turn right 090" and when the pilot looks to his right there's a black cloud with lightening coming out of it. Yet sometimes the pilot feeling deep stress will simply respond "right 090" instead of responding "unable". Having never been in such a stressful situation before with the pilot's family on board, I can't find any personal fault with the pilot or his decisions, but I think that pilots need to remember that ATC advice will only help when the advice is disseminated by the pilot as helpful or not. Plainville is not a very densely populated town. It's not near Boston or Providence. It's more like half-way between. The address of the accident was just about 1,500 ft. away from the Walnut Hill Horse Farm. There are corn fields and shallow ponds and lakes in Plainville and of course a golf course too. I think it's a shame that ATC first tried to advise the pilot to turn toward a busy road with buildings all along side it that was too far away anyway. I don't mean to disrespect the pilot or anyone else associated with this accident, including you. But I think that if pilots think ahead about the unthinkable, they can increase their chances for survival. I think this type of discussion and the possibility that it might save someone's life is what Monneyspace is all about.

daver, "Nobody" has the same attitude I do. You say, "Could the guy have done better? Sure." Therefore I have no argument with you. Lastly, it is possible that if he had done better that just maybe someone in that plane might have made it out alive.

daver, You belong to the "give up group". You say, "The guy didn't have any real viable options." But the NTSB report makes clear that the pilot responded shortly after being advised of the road being 2.5 miles away he was "gliding" at 1,450 ft. The road was not possible. Therefore he did have one final viable option. The option was to prepare for a crash landing. Head straight into the wind. Put down the flaps. Center the ball, maintain minimum sustainable airspeed. Turn off the fuel. He might have been lucky enough to land on the golf course that was only 2,000 ft away. That's where I landed and saved my life when I lost power in low IFR in a town with a population of 45,193 vs. Plainville, MA with it's population of just 8,264. Groundspeed at impact makes the difference of life and death. Of course the man and his family may not have survived, but survival is certainly possible. I'm sure you must agree that at some minimum altitude you must prepare for the inevitable crash. To be honest, I personally believe we should all read about the deadly accidents and to Monday morning quarterback all these accidents to learn from them, and if I ever die in a crash, please feel free to double-guess my judgements and decisions in flight, if thinking about all the different things that could have happened might have been improved upon to save my life and anyone else involved.

I'm a Stock Broker and Financial Adviser. Saw lots of doctors, engineers and IT people, but I didn't see anyone else doing what I do. Mark me "other".

Nothing personal DXB, but considering all I've written so far it should be clear that I want other pilots not to see themselves as victims of statistics, but rather see themselves as Pilots in Command which is what we all are. The focus needs to be on self reflection of what we need to do when the bad things happen. Reviewing the plan of action in your mind ahead of time repeatedly, can help you overcome freezing in place. It's not just this type of accident that must be considered, but all types. If there's no thought ahead of time it can be very difficult to plan things out "on the fly". Perhaps you should consider a new thread if you'd like to discuss statistics.

DXB, one more thing about statistics you should remember, and that is that past performance and results does not influence future events. Flip an honest coin and have it show up as heads ten times in a row, and the next time you flip it the chance it will be heads again is 50/50.

DXB, you can drown in a river that averages 6 inches deep. Playing with averages and statistics may help you assess relative risk, but if the mental gymnastics contribute to a fatalistic outlook, then your chances of making it out of a difficult situation will go against you. Just days ago a grand-father flying a V-Tail Bonanza crashed in turbulent weather in the middle of mountainous terrain, and the teenage grand-daughter walked miles to safety with only superficial injuries. We can only manage risk, we can't control it. Always avoid unnecessary risk and be more careful than necessary, but when all hell breaks loose hang in there. Falling off a tall building won't hurt you, it's only the landing that can kill you. Your wings are your parachute. - Practice in your mind and know what your going to do. Try to get where you want to be, but don't develop tunnel vision and try go where the aircraft can never reach. Be a pilot to the very last minute and keep flying the airplane.

Interestingly, the stall speed of my Beech Sierra turns out to be about 4 knots higher than the A36. As for gliding if you pop out high enough, I think slowing down is likely to become more important than picking up speed. After I tried to glide back to land and I was lined up into the wind, I not only had the flaps down, but I pushed the prop control forward rather than trying to reduce drag. Although I did many things right there's one observation of which I was mistaken and I think the A36 pilot made the same mistake. When the engine dies with your CS prop, the load comes off the prop and the windmilling starts and continues at just about the same speed so that you don't quickly realize that you have no power. At first I was convinced that I had partial power even though the loss of power was abrupt. I have read many accident reports where the pilot says he can't maintain altitude long before he knows he's gliding, including this accident. Planning early for the inevitable emergency crash landing can help you face the motions that you must complete. When I use my chain saw I always watch my hands move purposely slower than normal so that I don't cut off my leg. During my accident everything seemed to go in slow motion. I was determined not to yank or twist the yoke abruptly. I watched my hands shake from the adrenalin, but somehow I maintained some sort of Zen mentality as I turned off the fuel, set the flaps and flew the plane in a controlled, slow flight, like I was on rails at the end. After the accident I received a letter from the FAA telling me that I would have to appear at an Accident Reconstruction Meeting. It took several hours but I believe repetition is the mother of learning, and I was congratulated many times by the four people on the panel. I think there's one general mistake that many pilots can make in this situation. You must remember that "perfect" is the enemy of "good". If you have a chance to land in a good spot like a rough flat field, that's good - don't fly past good looking for perfect. If you land into the wind, gear up, on a rough field your chances of landing with no injuries are excellent. Don't try to save the airplane as well as yourself. Just save yourself.

In my experience the two most important instruments to watch at less than 1,500 ft and nowhere to go, is the airspeed indicator and the turn coordinator. The trim wheel should be all the way back and the airspeed just below the white arc (assuming the airplane is flying below gross). Keep the ball centered and wings level. Remember beforehand that the stall warning will be blaring and my warning to lower the gear was beeping too. Be ready to drop the nose into the first clearing of any kind you see and crack the door. Get the flaps down and make sure the plane is headed into the wind before you get too low. Some pilots ask ATC for help when the airplane is close to the ground and ATC can't do anything for them. Stay in control of the airplane. Never lose hope.