Likelihood of engine failure

[toto]

I just saw the below survey results in the AOPA SmartBrief.... 

Is it even remotely possible that 47.71% of pilots have experienced an in-flight engine failure?

 

 

Have you ever experienced an engine failure while flying?

No	52.29%
Yes	47.71%

[Hank]

That's hardly a scientific survey. This type of survey tends to be self-selecting for positive responses, throwing the results off by an unknown amount but always towards the "yes" answer.

There is also no time element. Engine failure in the last year, the last month, the last decade, the entire time someone has been flying (could be several decades)? How many hours:  100 hours, 1000 hours, 25,000 hours?

Need to define "engine failure." Does the most common failure, running out of gas, count? Or making strange noises at night, over water or over inhospitable terrain? How about fuel starvation, where the pilot doesn't move the fuel selector to the tank withnfuel in it?

Edited May 17, 2018 by Hank

[Guest Mike261]

The likelihood of engine failure is 100 percent.

All mechanical devices will fail, without exception. 

the trick is to retire them before failure, but some will fail prematurely.

if you fly long enough, eventually an engine will puke on you. 

if you fly all your life and it never happens, you are lucky and you didn't fly long enough to prove the theory.

this is why we should always be looking for a landing spot.

mike

[Guest]

Not an outright failure, but a major power reduction leaving me barely enough power to return to the airport.  This was on my first Mooney which had been sitting for some time.  

Clarence

[aviatoreb]

11 hours ago, toto said:

I just saw the below survey results in the AOPA SmartBrief.... 

Is it even remotely possible that 47.71% of pilots have experienced an in-flight engine failure?

 

 

Have you ever experienced an engine failure while flying?

No	52.29%
Yes	47.71%

Well - 3 weeks ago I would have answered no.

Now following my excitement about 2.5 weeks ago - a complete loss of power at 16,500 ft with a happy ending of a dead stick landing at an airport - now I will answer yes.

A (much more senior professor than me) mechanical engineer whom I know and respect, at Cornell, who owns and flies a C182, once said to me that he figures "something" happens roughly every 1000hrs of pilot time.

[dlthig]

I think that I've got around 1200 or so piston hours without a failure. The other 9000 are all multi engine jets, mil and civ, with 2, 3 and 4 engines. I've only shut down 2 engines. The last one was about 17 years ago. I hope to keep it at two.

[Mooneymite]

I think the significance (regardless of the poll accuracy) is that I must be prepared for an engine failure on each and every flight.

Probably at the worst possible time.

[INA201]

A few years ago I was at an AOPA sponsored safety seminar with at least 150 people in a little auditorium.  The lecturer asked the audience to raise their hands if they have had an engine failure in flight.  I do not recall the number of hands but I would say a small scattering around the room probably around 10% or so give or take.  I do seem to think it was about what you would expect.  The average age in the class seemed to be 60 ish.  My take is there were a lot of flying hours represented.  The type of folks that make the effort to go to a seminar will also be the folks who make the effort to stay on top of maintenance of their planes.  Nowadays we all need to get some common sense regarding polls,  surveys, and the like.   

[Mooneymite]

2 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Not an outright failure, but a major power reduction leaving me barely enough power to return to the airport.  This was on my first Mooney which had been sitting for some time.  

Clarence

Partial power loss can lull one into making a bad decision about continuing to the airport.

A neighbor died when his Stearman began sputtering right after takeoff.  Rather than land straight ahead with the engine still running, he elected to turn downwind and got into the stall spin scenario....

A tough call to make when you have partial power.

[Bob_Belville]

I had an IO360 swallow a valve @ 5000'. The engine did not stop but I had to pull throttle back to near idle. On another occasion I had a mag failure and I elected to make a precautionary landing rather than continue to my destination.  

[Jeff_S]

That survey is really meaningless, as has been noted, because you don't have any understanding of the responses or the respondents, e.g.:

• What type of engine - single or multi? Turbine or Piston?
• What type of pilot? How many hours, per year or total? Commercial or private?
• What type or "failure"? Total, or partial? If I had an engine stumble on takeoff due to carb icing (my only incident) would that be a failure?

It does serve to remind you, as has also been noted, that you have to be prepared for this type of event, even though it may never actually happen to you.

[RobertGary1]

I've had a number of partial failures and a complete engine disassembly in flight so I think I've exceeded the average and no longer have to worry about it, statistically.

I did have one opposite failure. A carb wouldn't throttle back so we had to kill the engine to land. I let the student handle the flying though since she was doing just fine. 

 

-Robert

[jaylw314]

15 hours ago, Mike261 said:

The likelihood of engine failure is 100 percent.

All mechanical devices will fail, without exception. 

the trick is to retire them before failure, but some will fail prematurely.

if you fly long enough, eventually an engine will puke on you. 

if you fly all your life and it never happens, you are lucky and you didn't fly long enough to prove the theory.

this is why we should always be looking for a landing spot.

mike

Well, statistically, pilot error is the main factor in 70% of accidents, so if I were being sardonic, I'd say the maximum likelihood of engine failure is only 30%

[ELT]

Yes, aircraft engines do quit.  In 4,000 hours over 47 years (1)I had a fuel selector jam in a M20C resulting in an off airport landing,  (2) a jug depart the engine in an Aztec,  (3) an oil line failed in an Apache,  (4) failure of a duel mag in a Cardinal RG.   All 4 could have been prevented.  The M20C was not serviced properly.  The jug left the Aztec due to the overhauler not cleaning the mating surface properly.  The Apache was old and had original oil lines.  The RG mag just had problems.     

[ziggysanchez]

Got my private pilot certificate back in 2009. I have accumulated approximately 2300 hours total time since then and have had 2 engine failures. I had a complete failure as a result of a dual magneto failure during my initial PP training while practicing forced landings with my instructor. Also had a partial failure in my Mooney last month on takeoff at night due to losing 2 cylinders. One cylinder was cracked at the top spark plug and the other had a valve seat come loose. 

[ArtVandelay]

Also had a partial failure in my Mooney last month on takeoff at night due to losing 2 cylinders. One cylinder was cracked at the top spark plug and the other had a valve seat come loose. 

How many hours did you have on engine?

[Stephen]

Does running a tank dry intentionally count? 

[toto]

21 hours ago, Hank said:

That's hardly a scientific survey. This type of survey tends to be self-selecting for positive responses, throwing the results off by an unknown amount but always towards the "yes" answer.

Right, I understand. But 50%ish still seems crazy high to me. At least, if I interpret "engine failure" as something catastrophic and not fuel starvation or something otherwise easily avoidable.

(It's hard to know whether a ran-out-of-gas pilot would describe the event as "engine failure.")

Even here on MS, it's a pretty big day if someone has a catastrophic engine failure. 

[ziggysanchez]

9 minutes ago, teejayevans said:

How many hours did you have on engine?

About 350 hours SMOH.

[Guest]

10 hours ago, Mooneymite said:

Partial power loss can lull one into making a bad decision about continuing to the airport.

A neighbor died when his Stearman began sputtering right after takeoff.  Rather than land straight ahead with the engine still running, he elected to turn downwind and got into the stall spin scenario....

A tough call to make when you have partial power.

You’re right an outright failure makes all of the decisions simpler.

I was on climb out from 32, cleaned up for the climb, no more than a half mile from the airport.  I made a descending left turn and landed on 07 at my home airport.  Landed with gear and flaps down and managed to taxi to the hangar.  It was about the fourth flight after months of work.

It turned out that the fuel servo had major issues, but had not missed a beat until then.

Clarence

[Yooper Rocketman]

I had a new employee hired about 2 months prior to my dealership "year end" (September 30, 2015) and had bought an "almost new" truck from a dealer down near Sheboygan, WI on that day.  She was to drive it back after our flight down and she had never flown in a GA airplane before.  She was "coached" as to my experience and the confidence my staff had to fly with me (warranted or not).  With the usual concern she asked me some questions during the flight down about what would happen if the engine quit, how long and how many hours I had been flying, the usual "new GA passenger" type questions.  I talked about the altitude I flew at (always as high as practical for the trip), how I was always cognizant of the closest airport, and how I watched everything on the plane closely, including maintenance.  She then exclaimed "you must feel pretty safe, with your hours, that you will never see an engine failure".  I said "quite the opposite, I flown way too many hours to NOT have had some type of situation so I feel my odds are stacked against me.  I fly every trip EXPECTING something will happen and am happy when it doesn't".  I think she thought that was overkill.

Three months later when I returned to my shop after the turbo induced engine failure, on the way to see my dad on his death bed, she excitedly recalled "you said this was going to happen!"  I'm thinking, great, she'll never fly with me again.  She and her husband attended my dad's funeral a few weeks later, with that event being the first time I had seen her husband since "my flying event".  I said to him, I suppose you don't want your wife flying with me at work anymore.  He replied (surprisingly), absolutely no problem.  You've demonstrated you can handle an emergency.  I have no problem with her flying with you anytime.

Fly like you expect something can happen, practice for it, review it in your mind (especially while your are motoring along fat and happy on a non-eventful flight).  If and when it does happen, you will be prepared.  I flew a medical flight over Lake Michigan yesterday.  I did a full briefing on emergency procedure with my back seat passengers, how to remove the seat belt from the life raft, how to open the door, etc.(in an BE36T Bonanza).  My routing and altitude was appropriate for a dry landing at any engine failure point over the water (see my Flight Aware track).  Again, start every flight prepared and your outcome will always be better.

Tom

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N7256A/history/20180516/1030Z/KIMT/KARB   (note altitude during lake crossing)

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/N7256A/history/20180516/1715Z/KARB/KIMT  (they offered direct on both trips, which was turned down for the minimum lake crossing distance)

[BKlott]

I didn’t respond to the survey because I thought it was a poorly structured question. We’re they looking for a “power loss” which can result from a number of factors or were they looking for an actual mechanical failure of the power plant?

[Hank]

39 minutes ago, BKlott said:

I didn’t respond to the survey because I thought it was a poorly structured question. We’re they looking for a “power loss” which can result from a number of factors or were they looking for an actual mechanical failure of the power plant?

It was poorly defined. They were looking for "engine failure," which is a broadly undefined event.

[HRM]

On 5/16/2018 at 7:33 PM, Hank said:

...where the pilot doesn't move the fuel selector to the tank withnfuel in it?

BTDT, caught it at the last moment though. I'll call it pilot failure, it wasn't the engine's fault that I staved it for gas. It was my second solo flight in my new Mooney. Nothing like a painful, near hemorrhoidal episode to set a good lesson in your mind.

[RobertGary1]

3 hours ago, M20Doc said:

You’re right an outright failure makes all of the decisions simpler.

I was on climb out from 32, cleaned up for the climb, no more than a half mile from the airport.  I made a descending left turn and landed on 07 at my home airport.  Landed with gear and flaps down and managed to taxi to the hangar.  It was about the fourth flight after months of work.

It turned out that the fuel servo had major issues, but had not missed a beat until then.

Clarence

I almost forgot that I also had a servo engine failure as well. I was able to get the engine back by moving the mix back and forth though. 800 sfnew 

-Robert