another Mooney goes in

[aviatoreb]

That is a strange looking crash site.  Nothing seems crushed but it seems bent in the middle.  The wings and tail feathers seem in tact.  All I can thing is it developed some spinning moment upon impact to the ground and started spinning sideways and hit a tree in its middle.

[Danb]

4 hours ago, M20F said:

Assuming you are talking about this Incident, how is this a better result?

Nope time flies in my business around first week of Feb the Cirrus that went down in a stall spin near Cleveland I think Green County, One killed not sure of the others. My point was it seems like a lot of stall/spin accidents are in the Cirrus models.

[DXB]

I got some info from a mutual friend with the pilot.  Engine quit at 100agl. It was first flight after annual that included extensive intake and carb work. Pilot is doing well despite a vertebral crush fracture, says shoulder harness saved his life.

[orionflt]

glad he is doing well, curious to find out what happened. 

 

Brian

[bonal]

First off will be interesting to find out what pilot did to make a good landing out of a bad situation. Well done. Secondly I have said this before and I stand by my opinion that annuals cause as many problems as they prevent. I have heard and read many accounts of post  annual issues especially on these really old airplanes including first hand experience. You bring in a perfectly good airplane rip it all open shuffle the pieces put it all together and hope all the parts are assembled correctly. When we fly our airplanes post service we are truly test pilots. I wish a speedy recovery to the pilot and very sad another Mooney is lost to us.

[Danb]

Bonal that's why the center or mechanic should test fly the plane before releasing it. I know Dorn flies the planes or at least  mine prior to releasing it to me.

i had a friend had a jug replaced during his annual and lost power at 1000 ago and made the death move back safely. The jug had a cloth in it that the mechanic put there so nothing would get into the engine while sitting there,how ironic.

[Guest]

This vintage C model has the fuel gascolator in the nose wheel well.  It sounds like the engine quit on gear retraction, I'd bet the gear hit the gascolator.

Clarence 

[Shadrach]

17 hours ago, aviatoreb said:

That is a strange looking crash site.  Nothing seems crushed but it seems bent in the middle.  The wings and tail feathers seem in tact.  All I can thing is it developed some spinning moment upon impact to the ground and started spinning sideways and hit a tree in its middle.

That is possible for sure, but I don't think the pics do the carnage justice. The left aeleron is completely torn off, the horizontal stab and elevator looks like it dug into the ground. I think it spun around a stationary object after impact and the tail dug into the ground and snapped the fuselage while the plane was essentialy traveling backwards. Look at the dirt signature on the elevator..

[Shadrach]

8 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

This vintage C model has the fuel gascolator in the nose wheel well.  It sounds like the engine quit on gear retraction, I'd bet the gear hit the gascolator.

Clarence 

Clarence, can you explain what might cause a situation like that. Even if that's not what happened here, I'm sure you have thought of a scenario that might cause this. Is it possible to adjust the gear in such a way that it would interfere with gascolator.

[orionflt]

13 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

This vintage C model has the fuel gascolator in the nose wheel well.  It sounds like the engine quit on gear retraction, I'd bet the gear hit the gascolator.

Clarence 

My Mooney is 17 numbers older that that mooney and I have to admit, the glass gascolatot worries me more then any thing else in the aircraft. I am very careful when working on it and it is one of the items that I will someday replace with a better version.

 

Brian

[orionflt]

Ross, it is not just the gear hitting the gascolator. the bowl of the gascolator is glass (a thick glass, but still glass) over torquing it, something being kicked up and hitting it, can cause the glass to break. At that point you are dumping all your fuel out of your nose gear door and little to none of it is making it to the engine. 

Brian

[N33GG]

Maxwell test flies every aircraft that goes through his shop before letting it go.  I have always appreciated that.  With all of his experience, he is looking, listening, and feeling things many pilots wouldn't even think of.

I consider the first flight after any maintenance a test flight.  Thorough pre-flight.  Stay near a runway, VFR a must, and no PAX on board.  I am getting to be a pretty old pilot and have seen too many things.

FWIW

[gsxrpilot]

What George said... The fact that Don Maxwell flies every airplane before it leaves his shop, certainly adds to the value of a Maxwell annual, if you ask me.

[mike_elliott]

6 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

What George said... The fact that Don Maxwell flies every airplane before it leaves his shop, certainly adds to the value of a Maxwell annual, if you ask me.

Don has more time in ground effect than 90 percent of us has time in mooney type

[kevinw]

11 hours ago, bonal said:

First off will be interesting to find out what pilot did to make a good landing out of a bad situation. Well done. Secondly I have said this before and I stand by my opinion that annuals cause as many problems as they prevent. I have heard and read many accounts of post  annual issues especially on these really old airplanes including first hand experience. You bring in a perfectly good airplane rip it all open shuffle the pieces put it all together and hope all the parts are assembled correctly. When we fly our airplanes post service we are truly test pilots. I wish a speedy recovery to the pilot and very sad another Mooney is lost to us.

Couldn't agree more. I was always taught to really look the airplane over and do a slow, thorough, pre-flight after it's been in the shop, both mechanical and for avionics issues. Probably not a bad idea to make a couple loops in the airport area just to be sure everything is working properly.

[chrisk]

I just got my plane back from Annual at the new Dugosh in Kerville.  They too test fly the plane before delivering it.  It gives me a lot of peace knowing someone else has tested it first.  Even still my I always  perform the first flight after maintenance by myself and with reasonably high ceilings. 

[Hank]

After annual or other work, I always do at least a lap around the pattern to full stop, throttle taxi back if there's somewhere in need to go. AFTER a thorough check of everything including all knobs and switches. 

[bonal]

problem is the incident aircraft was being flow solo and sounds like he only just departed from the field that the annual was done.  I guess one could take baby steps after a thorough preflight a lengthy run up and then maybe even a couple high speed passes down the runway. even if you intend to stay in the pattern there is still that first few moments before you have enough altitude to make the field if things go bad. Since there was a surviving pilot we can learn about what the symptoms were but how much investigation into the actual cause will be done. does the NTSB even get involve if its a non fatality?

[Guest]

8 hours ago, Shadrach said:

Clarence, can you explain what might cause a situation like that. Even if that's not what happened here, I'm sure you have thought of a scenario that might cause this. Is it possible to adjust the gear in such a way that it would interfere with gascolator.

It's not the adjustment of the gear which could be the culprit, if the lower portion of the gascolator were assembled with the Curtis drain valve aligned wrong the gear could strike it, just my thoughts.  I have to check one we just worked on.

Clarence

[neilpilot]

5 hours ago, bonal said:

Since there was a surviving pilot we can learn about what the symptoms were but how much investigation into the actual cause will be done. does the NTSB even get involve if its a non fatality?

Yes they do.  I was with the NTSB inspector when they did a tear down of my M20E in 2012.  See final report on N1310W.

[olympiadesign]

Hi, and thank you for all of the well wishes, analysis / commentary. I am the owner / pilot sitting  here in my hospital bed at 11:30 pm on a Friday night (highly medicated) thanking my lucky stars and the fact that I was in my Mooney.  The steel cage did its job ( and I was able to see and kiss my 18 mo daughter today).  I will share whatver I recall over time from this experience.  First  thing that was done to the plane when I bought it two years ago was the addition of shoulder harnesses.  Did not leave the ground with me in it until that was done.  Without getting into all of the details now I will cover the basics (again, I'm on strong pain meds and in a lot of pain / discomfort at the moment dictating to an iPad ). My main / obvious  injuries are as stated by someone else in the thread, fractured l1,l2, pretty nasty cut on left eyelid and black eye / bruising of left eye.  Bruised ribs, sprained right hand, cuts, scrapes and bruises on both arms, also wearing neck-brace full time as prescribed for soft tissue and ligament trauma in neck area.   No injury to lower legs but bruising on thighs.  Again this steel cage of the Mooney and the shoulder harness saved my life.  As for the initial reports, I did not exit the plane on my own. Someone helped me out of the plane.  My last memory before impact was " I'm coming in a bit steep .. It's gonna hurt...."  I ended up putting it down in a pretty clear area with some small brush. I was told that the initial indication of touchdown and where the plane came to rest was about 250 feet apart.  What I can tell you is that this was a post annual test flight / flight home to my home base.  After a normal preflight and extensive run up multiple times, I decided I would depart 28 and then head home.  The engine sounded great and ran strong on rollout through several hundred feet.  I typically pull the gear soon after while I am still within a speed that allows me to lift it without excessive force.  Once gear was up, and climb established, I pulled flaps, leveled wings got to about 350 agl and the engine went silent with no sputter or warning.  At that moment I first pumped the throttle then verified fuel was on and electric pump was on with mixture full rich.  After that I picked the grassy area north of the runway as my target, I initiated a very shallow right turn knowing it was down wind but feeling it was my best and only option at that moment. It was the only place I felt I would not hit power lines, cars on a busy road or trees. I held that shallow turn all the way down to my target and leveled the wings at the very end.  At that point I was headed downwind and was very low.  I pulled back to slow down and flare but headed down wind (gusting 19), I was out of time and altitude so I don't think the flare helped much....  From what I remember it was a pretty flat hit with slight nose down ( reminded me of the visual perspective of being on final aiming for the numbers but never having the opportunity to pull up and transition to a rollout and without flaps and gear for drag) by the time I pulled back and held back pressure I was on the ground.  

I am falling asleep as I write this and will try to add to the conversation in the near future.  Have a good night. And let me know if you have any questions.  

 

[Andy95W]

Thank you for posting, glad you're still with us.

[DonMuncy]

Thanks for the narrative. You did well with the bad hand you were dealt. Good luck with a speedy and full recovery.

[carusoam]

Way to go, Olympiad!

You did great!

Rest up and start the healing process.

You win a prize for the most interesting first post!

Welcome to MooneySpace,

-a-

[Marauder]

Glad to hear you are on the recovery path. You did well considering how much time you had to put it down. A few of us are curious how the tail got twisted almost 90°. Any clue how it ended up that way?

Have you ever been to N57? Your plane looks really familiar.

Quick recovery!

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