Very frustrating. This does not help GA.

[rbridges]

Takeoff is the only time I'll accept the no good options on engine failure; that said my home field has great options off both runway ends (corn fields), and I do scout/review options prior to takeoff, if only on the map.

 

My only point is we can in large part control where we are only one mechanical failure from no options.  I prefer, having had 2 partial failures, and a third running rough emergency precautionary landing, to always give myself options.  Generally this involves a good amount of altitude, and ability to see the ground well before you intersect it.  It means very little night flying, and no IMC where the ceilings are generally below 1000AGL, given I'm in a single.  I try and avoid airports where my takeoff performance would have to be perfect.

 

I have a backup AI and backup GPS and backup radio or two and alternator and battery and and and, again because of the one failure from disaster principle.  But just one engine.

 

I'm not convinced of the safety of light twins, given the double odds of engine trouble...  If you all wanna chip in, it would be a TBM or Pilatus for me!

 

g

 

I agree with what your saying but it's very difficult to leave yourself multiple options without limiting what you do.  The recent Piper crash leaving PDK in Atlanta still has me a little rattled.  Everyone keeps mentioning how there are very limited options for a low altitude engine out emergency for that airport.  I would assume that would be the same for most airports at larger cities.  

[Hank]

Yep. Even on my occasional trips to places like BNA or GSP with nice 10,000' + runways, Tower almost always wants a quick turnout. So all of that nice "room to land straight ahead" is rarely useful. FXE had me turn very soon with about 800-900' ceiling. Then it rapidly becomes "runway behind you" even though I taxied several miles to the threshold.

[marks]

We go to church on Sunday and whenever we say  "and lead us not into temptation"  I always think of my airplane.  On Oct. 15, 2004 I had a fire in my engine in hard IFR and managed to crash on the 6th fairway of the Hyannisport Golf Club during the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Golf Tournament.  Guys from Boston Sports teams and all sorts of celebrities were there.  The paper said they paid $10,000 a foursome to play. -  I had a hot mag that morning and allowed a mechanic to work on it while I went to my office.  The IA disconnected the fuel line to get at the left magneto and when he reinstalled the line he failed to reconnect the fuel pressure gauge.  Fuel sprayed like perfume unto the engine and when the exhaust manifold was hot enough "POOF" there was the fire.  I think I was stupid to fly in the fog just after work was done on the airplane, but once over land I turned the plane into the wind flew it slowly all the way to the ground and made a couple little adjustments when I could see where I was at 200 ft.  As the years go by I'm getting more and more careful.

[gsengle]

That's the key, you limit what you do.  For me, it would take at least 4x my aircraft investment to substantially change my minimums (single turboprop or light jet?)

 

 

I agree with what your saying but it's very difficult to leave yourself multiple options without limiting what you do.  The recent Piper crash leaving PDK in Atlanta still has me a little rattled.  Everyone keeps mentioning how there are very limited options for a low altitude engine out emergency for that airport.  I would assume that would be the same for most airports at larger cities.  

[N33GG]

We go to church on Sunday and whenever we say  "and lead us not into temptation"  I always think of my airplane.  On Oct. 15, 2004 I had a fire in my engine in hard IFR and managed to crash on the 6th fairway of the Hyannisport Golf Club during the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Golf Tournament.  Guys from Boston Sports teams and all sorts of celebrities were there.  The paper said they paid $10,000 a foursome to play. -  I had a hot mag that morning and allowed a mechanic to work on it while I went to my office.  The IA disconnected the fuel line to get at the left magneto and when he reinstalled the line he failed to reconnect the fuel pressure gauge.  Fuel sprayed like perfume unto the engine and when the exhaust manifold was hot enough "POOF" there was the fire.  I think I was stupid to fly in the fog just after work was done on the airplane, but once over land I turned the plane into the wind flew it slowly all the way to the ground and made a couple little adjustments when I could see where I was at 200 ft.  As the years go by I'm getting more and more careful.

Wow, wow, wow.  I just read the NTSB report.  Well done, and glad you are alive.

 

I am absolutely paranoid after maintenance, and try to check everything.  I instruct all mechanics that things never get buttoned up until I take a look.  But it is so easy to miss something like that.  Great reminder.  And after any maintenance, I never embark into anything but CAVU for a brief test flight alone.

 

Again, well done on handling what could have easily been another fatal accident. 

 

And then some of us on this forum could have discussed how you shouldn't have run out of fuel....   Come on guys, just kidding.

[marks]

Thanks for saying, "Well done" but in fact it was done poorly because it should never have been done at all.  One thing I did learn however, is that if you land with wheels up on grass the plane stops in a very short distance as the prop still turns and digs big divots along the skid.  -  I told my dentist that people talk to me like I'm some kind of hero while in fact I was just trying my best to save my own rear end.  Then the dentist said,  "Mark I belong to that country club and over there you are no hero."  

[The-sky-captain]

Thanks for saying, "Well done" but in fact it was done poorly because it should never have been done at all.  One thing I did learn however, is that if you land with wheels up on grass the plane stops in a very short distance as the prop still turns and digs big divots along the skid.  -  I told my dentist that people talk to me like I'm some kind of hero while in fact I was just trying my best to save my own rear end.  Then the dentist said,  "Mark I belong to that country club and over there you are no hero."

I read about this in an aviation magazine a few years back. Well done Mark on keeping your cool.

[ryoder]

One benefit of flying behind an old engine is that you always assume it's going to quit at any time. This causes me to avoid flying over large forested areas and cities at low altitude. I don't think I'll use IFR approaches much other than as a last resort. I'd rather divert to vfr than fly an approach in actual because the controllers vector you around at 1600agl over the city sequencing you in. What happens if I lose an engine in a long five mile downwind in the soup? I'm dead.

[N33GG]

When that fire started, it was game on. Whatever happened before (should have, could have, would have, etc.) is all history at that point and doesn't mean anything. When it counted, you held it together and managed to live another day.

Again, WELL DONE!

[marks]

Thanks guys for the "Well Done" remarks.  Keep in mind that if you do have a fire in the engine that the vacuum pump and hoses are toast right away.  I still had my turn coordinator and pitot static system and I knew my best glide airspeed.  The anti-flame fuel hose saved my life because even though the fire was burning right at the pin hole in the hose, without air mixed with the fuel, the fuel won't burn.  The  main FAA investigator told me that he had two things to tell me; "First, the pilot should not be able to start a fire from inside the cockpit no matter what controls he pushes, twists or pulls.  And second, the people on the ground have a right not to have burning airplanes flying over their heads."

[Marauder]

Thanks guys for the "Well Done" remarks. Keep in mind that if you do have a fire in the engine that the vacuum pump and hoses are toast right away. I still had my turn coordinator and pitot static system and I knew my best glide airspeed. The anti-flame fuel hose saved my life because even though the fire was burning right at the pin hole in the hose, without air mixed with the fuel, the fuel won't burn. The main FAA investigator told me that he had two things to tell me; "First, the pilot should not be able to start a fire from inside the cockpit no matter what controls he pushes, twists or pulls. And second, the people on the ground have a right not to have burning airplanes flying over their heads."

I hope no one else experiences this kind of problem. My event was a failed exhaust riser stud (stress fracture from over tightening) that caused the second nut to vibrate off the second stud.. It happened between Williamsport, PA and Elmira, NY over some really rough terrain and in IMC with mountain obscurations.

Fortunately I had a GEM installed and realized that the cylinder hadn't failed, but due to the noise I knew the stack was gone. My next reaction was to a possible fire because the cylinder was directly over thee oil cooler lines... Fortunately, it didn't catch fire but it did get me to rethink flying IFR over rough terrain in low weather.

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[pinerunner]

I like this kind of thinking. You can add quite an extra margin of safety by scoping out the places you fly to and from and considering what plan B might be in an emergency.

 

Note: I was trying to quote ryoder. There seems to be a disconnect between my wife's browser and this website.

[PTK]

That TBM 850 is nice. Drool...

When accompanied with a healthy dose of omplacency in the left seat they also will very predictably crash.

NTSB: "...the airplane’s encounter with severe icing conditions that were characterized by high ice accretion rates and the pilot’s failure to use his command authority to depart the icing conditions in an expeditious manner, which resulted in a loss of airplane control.”

According to NTSB: ATC advised Buckalew of moderate icing from 15,000 to 17,000 feet. His response:: “we’ll let you know what happens when we get in there and if we could go straight through, it’s no problem for us.” The controller then directed him to climb to 17,000 feet.

When the plane reached 16,800 feet Buckalew reported light icing and said “a higher altitude would be great.” Seventeen seconds later, he said the plane was experiencing “a little rattle” and asked to be cleared to go to a higher altitude “as soon as possible please.”

At 17800 feet he lost the airplane to an uncontrolled decent. He also had family onboard and a colleague.

NTSB concluded that "...while Buckalew had asked air traffic controllers to fly higher and out of the icing conditions, ...he may have been unaware of the severity of the conditions."

"...It's no problem for us..."???!!

NTSB: "Numerous PIREPS had reported icing conditions in the area around the time of the accident, including at least three flight crews that characterized the icing as severe, according to the report. One pilot told NTSB investigators his wing anti-icing system “couldn’t keep up” with ice accumulation of as much as 4 inches that had developed over a span of five minutes."

Two questions beg to be asked:

Did this gentleman get a thorough wx briefing?

Did he obtain informed consent from his pax to fly with him that day?

My point is that we GA pilots need to look in the mirror before each flight and ask the real hard questions.

It's not easy and no one can do that for us. We have to do it.

[ryoder]

Horrible tragedy. Engine failure at 3000 over populated area. No runway in glide distance.  IMC with low ceiling.  Listening to the ATC was truly sad- leaves me feeling that there was little hope after the engine quit, irrespective of the pilot's skill and experience level. Only way of averting may have been not to do the trip at all.  I crave getting my instrument rating, but not  for trips like this. I also have not flown at night since getting my license and am in no rush to do so.  

 

But when I think about it, would I be much better off if the same happened to me today in day VMC over a large, densely populated area?  Over dense forest?  On initial climb at my home field in an urban area?   Keeping oneself in a favorable situation at all times for losing the engine seems futile, but luckily these accidents are the small minority. It might be best just to take care of your engine, practice the engine out checklist, and then choose to worry only about all the stuff where your day to day decision making makes a real difference.

Me too. I don't fly low over hostile terrain. When I see trees and dense population I treat it like I'm flying over N Vietnam.

[filmsense]

In the UK it is illegal to fly over a densely populated area with a single engine plane if you are unable to glide to a field. This mostly applies to London where one can fly VFR up to 2000 feet, as any higher is ifr traffic. That's why it is extremely rare to have a single engine plane landing in someone's apartment. Of course this rule (5) doesn't apply to take offs and landings. Perhaps it is impractical in the states with such huge sprawling cities.

That, of course, does not prevent countless other ways to die in a plane. After all if GA has a statistic of a 1.7 fatal accidents in 100,000 hours, and an average pilot will fly about 800 hours in their life, that means that next time you meet 75 pilots in your airport s restaurant, one of them statistically is a dead man.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

[Hank]

Statistically speaking, we are ALL dead men. No one escapes alive. Looks like my time will be up this summer when I've flown out my allotted hours.

 

Seriously, though, I've only been to one airport restaurant that will hold 75 people, the rest of them are much smaller.

 

If GA is six times as dangerous as driving, then the next time you're somewhere with 450 people, at least one will die on the highway. Actually, more than that will die because we all seem to spend much more time in cars than in planes. So maybe the next time you meet 75 pilots in your restaurant, two or more of them are goners, one in an airplane and one or more in their cars.

 

Not how I prefer to go through life, thinking things like this.

 

In the US, it is illegal to fly VFR over "densely populated areas" at less than 1000' above the highest obstacle within 2000' of your flight path, regardless of how many engines your plane has. Except, of course, for taking off and landing. The definition of "densely populated" has been taken by the FAA to mean three persons in a 100-acre field . . .

 

If memory serves, the plane in this thread was being vectored to an instrument approach, in the clouds, so the exception applies. He was also more than 1000' and I think more than 2000' above ground.

 

Very few planes in the US fall out of the sky and hit buildings of any sort, thus the media attention in this case. Statistically speaking, about one plane a day has an accident; my memory says only one every few years hits anything besides dirt, fences, signs and trees, and few of those injure anyone on the ground.

[Shadrach]

In the UK it is illegal to fly over a densely populated area with a single engine plane if you are unable to glide to a field.

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

Is it enforced? If so how? It reads like a reg that is most useful to solicitors and government agencies after there has been an accident. It would have done nothing in this situation as these poor folks were on an IFR approach receiving vectors from ATC. He was cleared to 3000 ft. Soon after arriving at that altitude things went pear shaped.

[filmsense]

I only mentioned it as everyone on this thread was getting rather morbid. However it is important to be aware of the statistics in order to avoid being one...

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[Conrad]

This is a terrible thing to have happened, and listening to the recording it seems fairly clear to me that this pilot had no chance. In aviation and in life, we take risks, because to avoid them completely is a theoretical exercise at best. Even if a few people reading this story alter their minimums, many more will know of the risk and find it acceptable. How can we help them?

 

I haven't heard anyone mention the most relevant piece of cockpit technology for this incident, which I think would be Xavion. For those who haven't encountered it, Xavion is a mobile device based synthetic vision tool which integrates the xPlane flight simulation engine and constantly simulates engine failures and plans courses of action. In time critical situations when the ground is the safest place to be, it can tell you which way to turn to get to an airstrip. It is probably the only tool currently existing that can tell you realistically when your altitude is or is not sufficient to glide to an airport.

 

I suggest that as part of our effort to improve safety we support these and other next generation tools... which is a roundabout way of saying: support patent reform because Xavion, a potentially lifesaving piece of software, is currently not going to be ported to Android because the author of the software had a nasty run-in with patent trolls.

[N33GG]

In my most recent Flight Instructor Refresher Clinics, there has been a lot of discussion regarding why many of these new aircraft with all the modern fancy equipment to make pilots more safe are falling out of the sky and crashing at an enhanced rate.  Hmmmmm

[marks]

Now that the NTSB Preliminary report for the Plainville, MA accident has been published it's time we all faced the facts.  First of all, Plainville Massachusetts is anything but a "densely populated area".  The town border touches the extreme northeast corner of Rhode Island,  The address of the house that was hit was 25 Bridle Path.  A quick look at Google Maps shows that the Wentworth Hills Golf Club was just over 2,000 ft away from the crash site and some town land known as "Burnt Swamp" was just over a mile away.  The population of the town in 2010 was just 8,264.  We all fly over thousands of towns just like Plainville.  The pilot was extremely unlucky to have hit a house in a town like Plainville.  The NTSB report makes it sound as if the engine experienced a catastrophic failure.  The pilot declared an emergency at 3,300 ft and "queried the controller about the nearest airport".  When the pilot said, "we're losing engine" the controller provided vectors to a highway 2.5 miles away.  The report says the pilot reported "we're gliding" at an altitude of 1,450 ft. and 40 seconds later the last radar return "showed the airplane in a right hand turn at an altitude of about 700 ft and a ground speed of 66 knots, about a 1/10 mile from the accident site."     Of course a 1/10 mile is just 528 ft.

 

Clearly the pilot didn't run out of gas.  It's my opinion that pilots in this situation often try to reach the unreachable rather than prepare the aircraft for a controlled crash.  Based on my experience of crashing an airplane in the middle of hard instrument conditions into a nondescript area, you must face facts ahead of time that death is a strong possibility, however you can tilt the odds into your favor by sticking to the basics.  First of all, by the time you get down to 700 ft AGL you should not be in a turn.  At that point you are in the early stage of the crash and you won't be gliding far.  The best GPS or synthetic vision won't show you where the trees are. Secondly, the report says that the wx info from North Central Rhode Island Airport 8 miles away was that the wind was 010 at 9 knots.  So the aircraft should have been headed at 010.  ATC and pilots often ask about airports far away but don't ask for any wind information.  Pilots should be checking wind direction just as they should check altimeter before an instrument approach.

 

The NTSB report stated that the right flap actuator was in the position consistent with a retracted flap position, but that the left flap actuator had been consumed by fire.  Obviously, if the flaps weren't in the down position at 700 ft the pilot was not prepared for a controlled crash.

 

I understand that double-guessing a dead pilot can be a terrible thing, and in this case the flap position and heading and maintaining minimum controlled airspeed might have made no difference because of the house ahead in his flightpath hidden in the fog, but we should all do our best to reduce the final risk.  Remember, crashing at twice the speed results in four times the force.  If you crash into a forest at minimum speed, the trees tend to bend at first absorbing energy and you are surrounded by steel tubes, an aluminum cocoon, and a windmilling prop up front.  You may pop out to the edge of a small field and if your gear is up the prop may dig in as it bends absorbing energy before you hit something at a slower speed. 

 

Those of us that fly single engine IFR have to face up to the fact that we all fly well beyond glide distance to airports over nondescript locations frequently.  Personally, when I bought my Mooney I decided it was the right plane for me, not so much because it would fly fast, but because it could fly slow.  The stall speed of a Mooney is significantly lower than an A36 like the one that crashed in Plainville. -  My advice is to imagine the worst situations in your mind while relaxing at home and decide on your course of action if this terrible situation should ever happen to you.  Imagine the best solution first, then imagine it doesn't work out,,,,and then what you will do?  

[Hank]

I need to reread this in the evening and ponder for a while, without and adult beverage. May review the initial report, too.

[Deb]

One thought which has been discussed elsewhere relates to the engine driven vacuum pump in an engine failure. When the engine failed, might the AI have become unreliable (assuming a non-glass cockpit)? A small precession might not have been apparent in IMC. In that emergency situation, I think it would be difficult to think to ignore the AI and only use the turn coordinator to keep the wings level.

In analyzing a tragedy like this one, one can learn in hindsight what might have happened, and what one could do in that situation. Then practice what seems best.

NTSB preliminary: http://www.ntsb.gov/_layouts/ntsb.aviation/brief.aspx?ev_id=20150628X90626&key=1&queryId=219aa45a-47cc-4951-97dc-5369ccd50f76&pgno=60&pgsize=20

[marks]

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.

[N33GG]

As a general rule...If I am low and lose the only engine(s) on the plane I am flying, the first thing I do is turn into the wind.  (unless there is an obvious reason to do otherwise etc.)  Assuming wind is 10 kts:  Adding 10 kts to your speed or subtracting 10 kts is a 20 kt difference, and I like the low end of the 20 kt groundspeed decision.

 

Turning into the wind is not something I want to try to remember when I break out at low altitude above ground.

 

Just for what it's worth....