Still in Denial

[kelty]

2 minutes ago, PTK said:

Now that we all are very happy you and your fiancee walked away safe and over the touchy-feely "...you did great..."  phase, can we know what happened so we can all learn something?

You ran out of fuel and in the process destroyed a perfectly good airplane and almost killed yourself and your fiancee. How did this happen? What could you have done differently?

 

There is a monthly breakfast fly-in at my airport, HJO, and we were meeting for dinner Sunday night.  When I got to the airport I dipped the tanks, 10 gallons per.  Our destination was 30 miles away, I planned on filling up but the tank at the airport was empty.  Our destination had gas and 20 gallons is plenty to make it.  I was running off the right tank from takeoff.  I simply forgot to switch tanks when I normally do at 10 miles from landing.  As soon as the engine coughed I pushed full forward on the throttle, prop and mixture.  We were at 110 knots and about 900 feet AGL.  Step 1 was to make it over the high tension power lines right in front of me, then I switched the tanks.  NTSB mentioned that the fuel injection lines may have had vapor lock, delaying the restart.  

[prflyer]

Kelty,

Very nice job handling the engine stoppage and subsequent emergency landing.  Really glad you are both safe, and thank you for sharing your story. It helps me and others when we think about similar "lower fuel" situations that we all encounter.

Fernando

[PTK]

8 hours ago, kelty said:

There is a monthly breakfast fly-in at my airport, HJO, and we were meeting for dinner Sunday night.  When I got to the airport I dipped the tanks, 10 gallons per.  Our destination was 30 miles away, I planned on filling up but the tank at the airport was empty.  Our destination had gas and 20 gallons is plenty to make it.  I was running off the right tank from takeoff.  I simply forgot to switch tanks when I normally do at 10 miles from landing.  As soon as the engine coughed I pushed full forward on the throttle, prop and mixture.  We were at 110 knots and about 900 feet AGL.  Step 1 was to make it over the high tension power lines right in front of me, then I switched the tanks.  NTSB mentioned that the fuel injection lines may have had vapor lock, delaying the restart.  

Did you think to immediately switch tanks and switch on fuel pump as soon as engine coughed? I wonder why your first action was to open throttle. Mixture I can see but why throttle? You probably made it worse by sucking out every last drop of fuel including vapors!

1. Low fuel- switch to fullest tank
2. Low fuel pressure- fuel pump on

If no improvement, pump off and Mixture Full rich followed by mags. 

 

 

 

[flyboy0681]

Thanks for the mea culpa. That takes a very big man.

[flight2000]

11 minutes ago, Hyett6420 said:

And there for the grace of god goes everyone.

Out of interest did the low fuel light notcome on?  

Do newer Mooney's have a low fuel warning light?  I've never seen one, but would certainly be something that is handy.  We have them in new cars, but something simple like this would take years to get through our FAA certification process...

Kelty, great job getting it down and sharing the experience with us.  With 10 gallons in the tank and not being able to go 30 miles, wonder if you had an unknown tank leak somewhere that robbed more fuel than you were burning through the engine.  That should have been plenty of gas to make that short of a trip.  

Cheers,

Brian

[yvesg]

I am trying to brain wash myself into the following action if the engine would ever quit on me: Check the fuel pressure gauge. If it shows low, turn on fuel pump and switch tanks right away. In the case of the OP, there was not much time to do this due to his altitude.

Before my recent trip to Florida I decided to review my fuel management procedure to ensure I am doing the right thing.

For all the stops I did that long trip I always landed with at least 1 hour reserve and some flights were over 4 hours long.

Yves

[Bob - S50]

Thanks for sharing.

Glad you are both alright.

Your future Mrs. sounds like a trooper and keeper.

You can open the baggage door from the inside even if it's locked.  Just pull the little plastic cover off to expose the handle.  Hopefully you'll never need to use it.

Brian asked about a fuel low light.  Yes, on the annunciator panel.  Supposed to come on at about 2.5 gallons remaining in that tank.

Sounds like you had plenty of fuel, just made a mistake.  I wish I could say I've never made a mistake but I can't.   For your next plane you might want to get Cies floats and a digital fuel gauge.  We hope to have the Cies floats soon (waiting on word from Scott).  Our gauge will be set up to turn yellow when it is down to 5 gallons and red when it is down to 2.5 gallons.

[merrja]

1 hour ago, kelty said:

I had her open the door a few seconds prior to impact hoping that we would be able to get out that way.  But yes, as you can see we were pinned against the tree.  Branches came through the back right window so I got in the back seat, kicked the window out and was able tor each around and open the baggage door.

Well done!!

[kmyfm20s]

Great job!

I bought a book called "how to crash a plane and survive" those trees made a great energy brake, I would recommend the book to anyone. When I bought the book my now ex-wife asked if I was planning on crashing? My answer was no but I plan on surviving! She didn't like flying so she had to go! Good news is the girl friend does:)

Also in my "J" and "S" I intentionally ran the tanks dry to see how the plane would behave. I still will run a tank dry to maximize fuel. Both planes I calibrated a fuel stick and with the "S" in particular the factory sight indicators and fill tube tabs where surprisingly off. I recommend this exercise for all plane owners and don't count on the factory indicators until you verify.

[PTK]

In my J the low fuel comes on also at ~ 3 gal and I have the JPI set to alarm at 20 gal total fuel remaining. This is accurate to within 0.2 gallons as verified by fuel totalizer. Not sure how precise this is to what the gauges or low fuel annunciator says.

[MyNameIsNobody]

I had a gear up years ago while under instruction in a simulated engine failure in the pattern with a displaced runway.  My take-away and RELIGION after that event is to use the checklist on my thigh.

Glad you and your fiancé made it.  VERY lucky.  VERY preventable as you know.  Thanks for sharing and reinforcing the importance of sumping tanks...Having an accurate fuel monitor that is set properly...Using a checklist for all phases of flight.  Instrument scan...

We are human.  Using specific procedures is not a failsafe, but it helps keep us from being fallible.  AGAIN, VERY GLAD you are O.K.  If there had been a fire result would have likely been different with delayed egress.  I carry a plexiglass banger/seatbelt cutter in my pocket.

So twenty gallons.  Ten in each tank?  Did you sump?  30 mile flight ten gallons should have made it, reinforcing the importance of a visual check and sumping as a standard procedure.  KNOW your fuel quantity.  HUGE...

I hope your next bird is soon and safety is your mantra.  Tell this story over and over.  Good for your soul and you may save others.  This flying business is very unforgiving, but can be largely mitigated through safe procedures and solid maintenance and upkeep.

Edited January 5, 2017 by MyNameIsNobody

[Piloto]

Kelty

I am impress how well you set the plane on that three farm. The plane shows minimal structural damage.  Well done. I wonder if you remember the fuel indicated by the wing sight gauges. Sometimes the gauge float get stuck and may read higher. When reading this gauges I always shake the wing and watch for needle movement to verify the float is not stuck. At low fuel levels fuel may un port momentarily from the fuel pick up. This is why you should always take off with fullest tank. The electric pump needs to be primed it is not a vacuum pump. At very low fuel levels it would not help you. 

On my GNS 530W I have a 30 minutes interval message programmed to remind me to switch fuel tanks.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

José

Edited January 5, 2017 by Piloto

[Jsavage3]

Kelty, I am thankful that no one was hurt.  You do realize how lucky you are there wasn't a fire, right?  But, your bad math affects us all...another irreplaceable Mooney destroyed, more "bad press" about those Mooney people and more excuses for our insurance rates to keep going up.

You dipped the tanks?  10 gallons each??  I'm thinking your dip method is not accurate...obviously.  Even if you did have the 20 gallons of fuel, by the time you subtract the 3-4 that's unusable minus the 5 gallon for VFR day, that leaves you with 10-12 gallons useable, best case...basically 5-6 gallons per side if your fuel is balanced. So, your first stop is 30 miles away...15 minutes away is probably a reasonable estimate at 10 GPH...probably burned 4-5 gallons getting there by the time you add the start/taxi/takeoff fuel.  Your low fuel light should certainly have been on, if your bird was so equipped, prior to the cough.  And even if not, there still is no excuse for not selecting the fullest tank for every landing just like the checklist directs us to do.  Bottom line, you suffered from a condition most of us know as get-there-it-is and you allowed yourself to make the bad decision to go anyway, knowing full well that you were very low on fuel.

There are two things that are unforgivable in aviation -- running out of fuel and landing gear up -- at least if one seeks to join the professional aviator occupation, that is.  Walk into a flying job interview and relay one's "running out of fuel or gear-up landing" experience and you will see just how short an interview can be.  The Feds don't smile on out-of-fuel scenarios either.

I guess I'm a bit paranoid about a few things, but certainly gear down for landing and having enough fuel would be at the top of my list.  I check my gear down three times in the pattern (downwind, base & final) and then I have my right-seater check too (if I have one) as a final precaution.  When my gauges read 1/4 fuel remaining, that's my "it's time to land" mnemonic.

You elected to push on through and I hope we can all learn from your mistake.  Your beautiful Mooney paid the ultimate price; fortunately you and your fiancé did not.

[Marauder]

I'm curious if the FAA asked you to do a 709 check ride. 

[N6758N]

8 minutes ago, Jsavage3 said:

Kelty, I am thankful that no one was hurt.  You do realize how lucky you are there wasn't a fire, right?  But, your bad math affects us all...another irreplaceable Mooney destroyed, more "bad press" about those Mooney people and more excuses for our insurance rates to keep going up.

You dipped the tanks?  10 gallons each??  I'm thinking your dip method is not accurate...obviously.  Even if you did have the 20 gallons of fuel, by the time you subtract the 3-4 that's unusable minus the 5 gallon for VFR day, that leaves you with 10-12 gallons useable, best case...basically 5-6 gallons per side if your fuel is balanced. So, your first stop is 30 miles away...15 minutes away is probably a reasonable estimate at 10 GPH...probably burned 4-5 gallons getting there by the time you add the start/taxi/takeoff fuel.  Your low fuel light should certainly have been on, if your bird was so equipped, prior to the cough.  And even if not, there still is no excuse for not selecting the fullest tank for every landing just like the checklist directs us to do.  Bottom line, you suffered from a condition most of us know as get-there-it-is and you allowed yourself to make the bad decision to go anyway, knowing full well that you were very low on fuel.

There are two things that are unforgivable in aviation -- running out of fuel and landing gear up -- at least if one seeks to join the professional aviator occupation, that is.  Walk into a flying job interview and relay one's "running out of fuel or gear-up landing" experience and you will see just how short an interview can be.  The Feds don't smile on out-of-fuel scenarios either.

I guess I'm a bit paranoid about a few things, but certainly gear down for landing and having enough fuel would be at the top of my list.  I check my gear down three times in the pattern (downwind, base & final) and then I have my right-seater check too (if I have one) as a final precaution.  When my gauges read 1/4 fuel remaining, that's my "it's time to land" mnemonic.

You elected to push on through and I hope we can all learn from your mistake.  Your beautiful Mooney paid the ultimate price; fortunately you and your fiancé did not.

Running out of fuel is definitely unforgivable, however it sounds like Kelty did switch tanks and should have been able to perform a restart, maybe vapor lock prevented that? I for one have a hard time passing judgement on a Naval Aviator that flies an F-18, pretty sure he is the definition of a professional. Thanks for your service Kelty and I hope we can all learn something from this. Glad you and your fiance are okay. 

[MyNameIsNobody]

Just now, N6758N said:

Running out of fuel is definitely unforgivable, however it sounds like Kelty did switch tanks and should have been able to perform a restart, maybe vapor lock prevented that? I for one have a hard time passing judgement on a Naval Aviator that fly's an F-18, pretty sure he is the definition of a professional. Thanks for your service Kelty and I hope we can all learn something from this.

My understanding was that pilot stated he forgot to switch tanks.  He then hit boost pump at hiccup and clear power lines prior to switching tanks.  No joy on re-start and offfield landing with fuel in left tank.  

A check-ride WILL-be coming.  Mine was uneventful.  Even Naval aviators are human.  Superior , but human non the less.  That just reinforces more in my mind the importance of...my previous post items.  If it can happen to the best of the best, it damn well can happen to me...

[PTK]

1 hour ago, kelty said:

...  I was running off the right tank from takeoff.  I simply forgot to switch tanks when I normally do at 10 miles from landing.  As soon as the engine coughed I pushed full forward on the throttle, prop and mixture.  We were at 110 knots and about 900 feet AGL.  Step 1 was to make it over the high tension power lines right in front of me, then I switched the tanks.  NTSB mentioned that the fuel injection lines may have had vapor lock, delaying the restart.  

 

18 minutes ago, N6758N said:

Running out of fuel is definitely unforgivable, however it sounds like Kelty did switch tanks and should have been able to perform a restart, maybe vapor lock prevented that? I for one have a hard time passing judgement on a Naval Aviator that flies an F-18, pretty sure he is the definition of a professional. Thanks for your service Kelty and I hope we can all learn something from this. Glad you and your fiance are okay. 

He did not switch tanks nor did he switch on fuel pump. He went WOT instead which made things worse by sucking out any remaining last drops of fuel!

[N6758N]

1 hour ago, kelty said:

There is a monthly breakfast fly-in at my airport, HJO, and we were meeting for dinner Sunday night.  When I got to the airport I dipped the tanks, 10 gallons per.  Our destination was 30 miles away, I planned on filling up but the tank at the airport was empty.  Our destination had gas and 20 gallons is plenty to make it.  I was running off the right tank from takeoff.  I simply forgot to switch tanks when I normally do at 10 miles from landing.  As soon as the engine coughed I pushed full forward on the throttle, prop and mixture.  We were at 110 knots and about 900 feet AGL.  Step 1 was to make it over the high tension power lines right in front of me, then I switched the tanks.  NTSB mentioned that the fuel injection lines may have had vapor lock, delaying the restart.  

 

2 minutes ago, PTK said:

 

He did not switch tanks nor did he switch on fuel pump. He went WOT instead which made things worse by sucking out any remaining last drops of fuel!

He did not switch tanks when he normally would, but read the second to last sentence! Not saying he didn't make any mistakes, but he clearly prioritized flying the airplane to avoid hitting power lines first. I give him credit for even having the balls to post this on here. 

[astravierso]

kelty,

Thanks for the share, not an easy thing to do but you may have given one of us something to think about at a future time which will keep us safe.

Regards,

[midlifeflyer]

1 hour ago, kmyfm20s said:

Great job!

I bought a book called "how to crash a plane and service" those trees made a great energy brake, I would recommend the book to anyone. When I bought the book my now ex-wife asked if I was planning on crashing? My answer was no but I plan on surviving! She didn't like flying so she had to go! Good news is the girl friend does:)

For anyone interested, the book being referred to is available here: http://www.crashandsurvive.com. Mick was a fixture in the Colorado Front Range aviation community for decades and his live program on the topic was one of the great ones.

[alex]

Yeah..  that!     honestly, I don't get why people here still subject themselves to the usual MS "judge and jury" bullhonkey. It just never fails.  

[carusoam]

Summary of some of the things I think I read...

1) Everybody cares about the pilot and passsenger.

2) sometimes 1) gets lost in the writing.

3) How much fuel is actually in the tank. Some people use a calibrated stick.  Other use the wing mounted float fuel indicators. A handful of people have added digital floats that have higher accuracy.  A Fuel Flow / totalizer is also a nice device.  In the end, they all lose accuracy at the low end of the scale...

4) Running out of fuel at a low level, expect a descent rate near 1k' fpm. There isn't much time to do anything but land safely.

5) tank low level warnings using the annunciator on the panel, expect that the annunciator doesn't work until the unanciators are tested in pre-flight.  Pushing the test button initiates the warning system.  (Surprising for some of us)

6) How many gallons are in the tank when the low level lights come on... very few.  Some were half the level that the newer tanks were set for. Three gallons compared to six gallons usable or something like that.

7) keep the ball centered, fuel can run away from the pick-up in a slip.

8) lowering the nose also has an effect of fuel running away from the pick-up.

9) restoring fuel flow to the engine takes about 10 - 15 seconds or so.  A long wait while quietly heading down hill.

10) The baggage door can be opened from the inside of most Moonies.  Important or best to know before the off-field landing begins...  there is a kit that can be installed to make it easier and more obvious.

11) acrylic windows are brittle and can be broken somewhat easily with the safety hammer device.

12) being human comes with restrictions... we run out of fuel, we fly VFR into IMC, and we graduate to the next level... we run into icing and thunderstorms.

13) with only a few gallons in each tank, it is hard to know which tank is most full with the old fuel gauges. Hence the procedure of change tanks, FP on, mixture in, etc....

We have all found new and different ways to make mistakes.  Running out of fuel has been done by Mooney aviators at least three times recently that I remember.  (I don't have a very strong memory.) One was a young guy landing short of an airport with his GF on a golf course, another was an experienced aviator on his way for low cost fuel at another airport...

At least this is what I think I got out of this thread...

Best regards,

-a-

[PTK]

56 minutes ago, N6758N said:

 

He did not switch tanks when he normally would, but read the second to last sentence! Not saying he didn't make any mistakes, but he clearly prioritized flying the airplane to avoid hitting power lines first. I give him credit for even having the balls to post this on here. 

He did not switch tanks. His original post has been edited. Regardless actions to be taken are:

Low fuel condition- switch to fullest tank

Low fuel pressure- fuel pump on

In that order. Period. Certainly no WOT.

[N6758N]

9) restoring fuel flow to the engine takes about 10 - 15 seconds or so.  A long wait while quietly heading down hill.

Restoring fuel flow to the engine should not take 10-15 seconds, ever run a tank dry?

[N6758N]

Just now, PTK said:

He did not switch tanks. His original post has been edited. Regardless actions to be taken are 

Low fuel condition- switch to fullest tank

Low fuel pressure- fuel pump on

In that order. Period.

And what about flying the airplane? where does that fall in the order?