09/30 N5779R Engine Failure at 12,500'

[CoffeeCan]

I know a few of you are already aware of my incident on 09/30, but I've been hesitant to post anything until the insurance company made their determination re repair vs write-off. Also, having a forced landing off-airport is an awkward situation to find oneself in, and I've needed time to process the event and my responses to it before opening the topic up for discussion on an open forum. 

Aircraft background: M5779R is a 1985 M20K (231) with many positive aftermarket mods, including GAMIjectors, intercooler and wastegate, 3-blade McCauley prop (hot), Aspen PFD, JPI 830, Garmin 430, and Garmin ADS/B In/out transponder.  The engine was rebuilt in 2016 prior to my purchase, and had less than 100 hrs SMOH when I bought it in 2018. I have flown her nearly 500 hours since then. I had a great deal of work done at annual last year, including replacement of the #6 cylinder, Prop governor overhaul, new right-side exhaust header, replacement of ALL belts and hoses, new gascolator, and multiple other smaller jobs. At the time of the incident 79R had flown 143 hours since last annual. 

On the date above I was flying from KABI to KDGW in a clear VFR sky to do some hunting with friends. I had stopped for fuel at Borger, TX, and was about an hour into the second leg of the flight at 12,500' when I had a sudden partial loss of power. I had been cruising at usual settings, 32" MP and 2450 RPM and 11.0 GPH (approx. 50% power setting) with a 12 knot tailwind. With the power loss my manifold pressure dropped below 20", but RPM's stayed around 2400. 

My first thought was that I had a fuel flow problem, so immediately switched tanks and hit the low boost switch. No change. Airspeed had dropped significantly, but the autopilot was holding my altitude and the engine was still making some power. IIRC, CHT's and TIT were fine, but the JPI was reading 20% power output and dropping. Half of my brain was trying to puzzle out the cause of the power loss, but the larger part of my brain was saying, "Look for a place to land, establish best glidespeed, try to restart the engine, and declare an emergency," over and over again. So that's what I did. I looked around at the flat eastern Colorado terrain, saw no airport; looked at my Foreflight moving map, and saw the Limon airport about 25 miles ahead of me and no other marked airfield. My airspeed was still above best glide at this point. Looking back on it now, I estimate that the time elapsed up to this point in the emergency was about 20-25 seconds. 

The engine was still running, so a restart was obviously not necessary; so I pushed the prop control full forward and there was no change. In fact, I noted that my RPM's were starting to climb irrespective of the position of the prop control. This was my first clue that I had an oil pressure problem. I then looked at the oil pressure gauge, and it was pegged on zero. This was the "Aha!" moment, and I went fully into my power-off landing checklist that I've had stamped in my brain since my earliest flight training. I switched off the magnetos, which caused immediate slowing of the aircraft, and of course also meant no vacuum pressure, so I began setting my attitude manually to best glide (88 KIAS). I keyed the mic and informed Denver Center I was declaring an emergency. The controller, who sounded very young, immediately experienced a 2-octave increase in his voice pitch, by which I gathered he was pretty new to this situation. 

I advised ATC I had lost power and was descending without power, and intended to land on either a road or an open field, unless he could vector me to an unmapped airfield closer to my position. I started at 6500' AGL, and estimated I had about 10 miles maximum glide range. There were several roads and a paved highway ahead of me, so I simply maintained my heading and descended at best glide speed. As I got closer to the ground it was apparent that the highway was far too busy with vehicle traffic to safely land on, so I decided to try for the nearest east-west gravel road, which I estimated was just within my glide range. However, it became clear quite soon that I wasn't going to get that far. As I dropped below 1000' AGL, I lowered my landing gear (I still had lots of battery power for the gear motors) and advised ATC I'd be landing in a pasture. 

I maintained clean configuration for airspeed, and the mains touched down a about 70 KIAS. I kept lots of backpressure on the yoke to keep the nosegear off the ground as long as possible. When I could keep the nose up any longer I started braking, but almost immediately hit a shallow cowpath and the nosegear collapsed. I skidded to a stop within about 50 yards of the cowpath. 

When the airplane stopped, I made sure all switches were off, unfastened my seat belt, and exited the aircraft. There was no gasoline smell, and no smoke, so I didn't hurry. I found I was less than 100 feet from the county road I'd been hoping to land on, and about 150 yards from the paved highway. All kinds of vehicles were turning onto the county road to check on the "crash scene". One kind young man offered the warmth of his car to sit in while I dealt with the necessary phone calls. 

ATC at Denver called within a few minutes (to see if I was alive), and of course my first outgoing call was to my wife to let her know I was down but OK. ATC got emergency services on the way and I was soon talking to the sheriff's deputy, fielding calls from the FAA and NTSB, and so forth. Eventually all the ducks were lined up as well as could be, and the deputy gave me a lift to a hotel in Limon, where my wife picked me up in her truck the next day. 

My insurance company has decided to sell N5779R for salvage, and I've signed the bill of sale. Unfortunately, I hadn't anticipated the rise in airplane prices this year, or I'd have re-insured her for what I could sell her for today (about $80,000 more than I paid for her!). 

I was not injured in the incident. I attribute this to the sound construction of Mooney aircraft, and to the thoroughness of my flight instructor(s) who drummed the engine-out landing checklist into my brain. At no time during the incident did I feel scared or panicked... I just did what I knew had to be done and flew the airplane all the way to the end of the landing rollout. Easy-peasy. 

I know a lot of people don't have as happy an outcome when they experience an engine failure. I realize that I was fortunate to have perfect conditions for my off-airport landing, or I might not have had as happy an outcome myself. If I had been over rough country or mountainous terrain, or flying at night, or IFR over low ceilings, my landing may have been a crash. But because I had clear visibility and plenty of flat terrain to choose a landing spot on, it was relatively uneventful. On the other hand, if it hadn't been for the cowpath that collapsed my nosegear, I would likely be having my airplane fixed right now rather than shopping for a new one. 

I share this experience with my fellow Mooney pilots because it may help someone else in their aeronautical decision making process or in their flight planning process. I am an avid reader/viewer of aviation-gone-bad articles and videos myself, am constantly learning from them. I hope this experience might help someone else be prepared in case of an emergency of their own. 

Postscript on the engine failure:  when I landed, the entire belly of the airplane was covered with engine oil. I did not remove the cowling then and there, as more than one helpful idiot has suggested I should have done (including the guy from NTSB that called me 20 minutes after my airplane came to a stop in the pasture) but when the salvage crew got it to a nice clean shop and pulled the cowling they found no sign of a catastrophic oil line failure, etc. What they DID find was an oil breather tube covered with oil, and a splatter pattern in the compartment suggesting that an oil passage blockage had occurred somewhere in the engine resulting in the sump oil being blown out the breather tube. There was still about 3 quarts of oil in the sump, and the crankshaft still turned, so my delay in shutting down the engine apparently did not seize it up. I was just informed yesterday by the insurance adjuster that the engine is going to be torn down and inspected as part of the salvage process, and he will keep me informed as to the location of the blockage. FAA and NTSB have both signed off on the incident as an engine failure, and I have not been cited for pilot error. So that is something of a comfort.

Postscript on aircraft damage:   in addition to the collapsed nosegear, the right main gear was damaged (framework within the wing bent). Two of the 3 prop blades struck the ground and were severely bent, which of course necessitates and engine tear-down and inspection. The engine mounts were not damaged, but there was some deflection of the airframe back of the firewall which the insurance adjuster estimated would require significant repair costs. At this time I still don't know what damage to the engine and/or turbo may have occurred to cause the power failure. 

So I'll be airplane shopping now. I love the 231/252 platform for a lot of reasons, and I am strongly tempted stick close to home in this respect. Jimmy Garrison at GMax (formerly All American) says he has a lot of options in that area if I'm willing to be patient, and can stomach the high current prices. But I'm somewhat concerned about the growing scarcity of parts for Mooneys, as the factory continues to not make them. So I may stray farther afield into the land of Bonanzas, Cessnas, or Pipers. I guess we shall see.  

 

 

PPS 12/19/21:  

I posted the following last week farther down in the thread, but I am copying and pasting it here to save folks having to scroll down.

I received an unofficial report on the engine postmortem. 

The engine crew looked first at the turbo, expecting to find the exhaust to be full of oil, indicating the failure was in the turbo (as the loss in manifold pressure suggested). However, there was no oil. The turbo had seized, but that would be expected with almost any loss of oil pressure. The crankshaft had not seized, and still turned easily… they found there was about 3 quarts of oil still in the crankcase. 
 

The culprit proved to be a broken exhaust valve in the #4 cylinder, which fell into the cylinder and punched a hole in the top of the piston. I w@s surprised to hear that, as I heard nothing that sounded like any engine cylinder  eating a valve I’ve ever heard before (in automotive and small engine applications). The engine guys suggested I might have had enough power to keep the engine going a bit longer, as it was still making some power… but if I had done so, and tried stretching it the 25 miles between the point of failure and the Limon airport, other nastier things might have happened, such as an engine fire.
 

All in all, I think what was basically an uneventful power-off landing in a field was the preferred option, as opposed to a high-speed and high-angle descent in a burning airplane into a fresh crater.

Edited December 20, 2021 by CoffeeCan

[EricJ]

Glad to hear that didn't end worse.   Thanks for sharing.

 

[Mooney Dog]

22 minutes ago, CoffeeCan said:

My insurance company has decided to sell N5779R for salvage

That sounds like the worst news here.

 

All in all it sounds like you handled the entire situation like a pro. Glad you're here talking about it today. I hope you're able to find another bird that fits you well, and maybe with a few new bells and whistles you didnt know you wanted! 

[mike_elliott]

Glad you are here to tell this, and not injured. Did you open your door and push the lock lever forward to keep it open prior to setting down in the pasture? Did you say to yourself right before running the emergency checklist (Good call on having it memorized) "this belongs to the insurance company" Its remarkable how that keeps you from wasting time trying to protect the garmin stuff vs spending that time protecting the stuff in the Jockey shorts.

Again, congrats on a safe outcome. There are a lot of nice Mooney planes that can replace it.

[Mooney Dog]

4 minutes ago, 1980Mooney said:

No it is not the worst.  FAA Prelim shows 5 Accidents/Incidents involving Mooney's in the last 10 days.  3 Accidents resulting in 2 fatalities and 2 other Gear-ups.

 

Well i was more talking about his specific incident, not in total.

 

 

[CoffeeCan]

2 hours ago, mike_elliott said:

Glad you are here to tell this, and not injured. Did you open your door and push the lock lever forward to keep it open prior to setting down in the pasture? Did you say to yourself right before running the emergency checklist (Good call on having it memorized) "this belongs to the insurance company" Its remarkable how that keeps you from wasting time trying to protect the garmin stuff vs spending that time protecting the stuff in the Jockey shorts.

Again, congrats on a safe outcome. There are a lot of nice Mooney planes that can replace it.

Mike, as a matter of fact, once I had declared the emergency I did actually say out loud to myself, "This airplane now belongs to the insurance company, and my only job now is to fly it all the way into the ground and walk away from it."  

And yes, I did open the door when I dropped the gear. 

[CoffeeCan]

1 hour ago, 1980Mooney said:

Sorry to hear.  Deciding whether to belly it in gear up or try to land gear down is a hard decision.  As you noted any rut, rabbit hole, mound generally will collapse the nose gear and rip the mains off.  With the fiberglass one piece belly a nose high belly landing sometimes has a better chance of saving the major structure while sacrificing the prop and engine.  But that is the dilemma in a high stress situation.

The question of gear up or gear down in an off-airport landing is one I've thought about a lot in the past year or so, as there is a lot of debate on this and quite a few good YouTube videos on it. I had decided that unless the landing field looks like a billiard table, I would go in gear-up on the belly. In this case, I put the gear down almost as a reflex as I lined up to land, and I thought the pasture looked about as smooth as a baby's butt. 

As my wife and I walked the "runway" the following day, it was truly as smooth as a paved parking lot... except for that one rutted cowpath, which was only about 6-8" deep and invisible from the cockpit. 

[CoffeeCan]

1 hour ago, 1980Mooney said:

No it is not the worst.  FAA Prelim shows 5 Accidents/Incidents involving Mooney's in the last 10 days.  3 Accidents resulting in 2 fatalities and 2 other Gear-ups.

1980Mooney, when I landed that day I thought it was no big deal to walk away from the wrecked airplane. It seemed to me that it was an pretty ordinary landing, other than the engine being off and their being no airport nearby... but as I spoke with various people from FAA and NTSB, the local sheriff (they have a lot of aviation in their county), my past flight instructors, and so forth, it became apparent that a lot of folks do NOT get to walk away from these things. 

Let me reiterate:  the most important factor in this landing was that I had good training, and I give my primary flight instructor in 2013-14, my transition training instructor in 2018, my BFR instructors in 2015, 2017, 2020, and 2021, and my current IFR instructor ALL the credit for keeping my head where it needs to be, i.e., on having my emergency checklists memorized and frequently rehearsed (mentally, at least). When you KNOW what you need to do, and you don't have to dig for a checklist to save your ass, it gives you confidence and assurance. I called every one of those instructors in the past few weeks to thank them. 

The axiom is this:  in an emergency you will default to your level of current training. If your training is not current, you will default to a level of training that may not be sufficient to meet the emergency. 

Edited November 13, 2021 by CoffeeCan

[GeeBee]

Excellent job. You done good, real good!

[Ragsf15e]

4 hours ago, CoffeeCan said:

1980Mooney, when I landed that day I thought it was no big deal to walk away from the wrecked airplane. It seemed to me that it was an pretty ordinary landing, other than the engine being off and their being no airport nearby... but as I spoke with various people from FAA and NTSB, the local sheriff (they have a lot of aviation in their county), my past flight instructors, and so forth, it became apparent that a lot of folks do NOT get to walk away from these things. 

Let me reiterate:  the most important factor in this landing was that I had good training, and I give my primary flight instructor in 2013-14, my transition training instructor in 2018, my BFR instructors in 2015, 2017, 2020, and 2021, and my current IFR instructor ALL the credit for keeping my head where it needs to be, i.e., on having my emergency checklists memorized and frequently rehearsed (mentally, at least). When you KNOW what you need to do, and you don't have to dig for a checklist to save your ass, it gives you confidence and assurance. I called every one of those instructors in the past few weeks to thank them. 

The axiom is this:  in an emergency you will default to your level of current training. If your training is not current, you will default to a level of training that may not be sufficient to meet the emergency. 

Cruise was an excellent time for that to happen if it was going to happen anyway.  Much less pucker factor and many more options than anytime you’re lower or slower.

[Air pirate]

You walked away, the best outcome. Well done sir and thank you for sharing.

 

[201er]

16 hours ago, mike_elliott said:

Again, congrats on a safe outcome. There are a lot of nice Mooney planes that can replace it.

Mike, I’m so happy to say you don’t get to make any calls or send any donations for this one!

[larrynimmo]

You mentioned you would be looking for a used plane…I saw this ad on Facebook…

[skykrawler]

Please update this thread with the results of the engine inspection.  Perhaps a holed piston which could tend to pressurize the crankcase, but that should have given an indication on the engine monitor.   Turbos can blow oil out the exhaust.

[CoffeeCan]

1 hour ago, skykrawler said:

Please update this thread with the results of the engine inspection.  Perhaps a holed piston which could tend to pressurize the crankcase, but that should have given an indication on the engine monitor.   Turbos can blow oil out the exhaust.

I will certainly update this thread. 

As I previously reported, the provisional diagnosis from Beegles was that the oil blew out the breather tube, which suggests a sudden blockage of one of the oil journals or other oil passages within the engine. The obvious questions is what could have blocked the oil flow? 

I had an oil change done about 6-7 hours prior to the incident (10 days before).  Is it possible a defective oil filter spit out a piece of debris? Or was there debris from a failing part in the engine? 

I'm also curious to know if the failure had anything to do with the new #6 cylinder that was replaced at last annual. At the time that work was done, my airplane was in the clutches of a shop that I have learned to be very suspicious of, ethics-wise. In hindsight, I believe if I'd been a subscriber to SavvyMX at that time the cylinder replacement would likely not have happened. Mike Busch's books and articles have many examples of new cylinders leading to serious problems in the first 200-300 hours of operation. 

[CoffeeCan]

5 hours ago, larrynimmo said:

You mentioned you would be looking for a used plane…I saw this ad on Facebook…

I've been eyeing Controller and Trade-A-Plane for a few weeks, there are a number of Bravos out there for sale. I'm talking to Jimmy Garrison at GMax Aviation and will see what he can scare up before I make a decision on anything on the open market. But thanks for posting the link anyway. 

[Ragsf15e]

5 minutes ago, CoffeeCan said:

I've been eyeing Controller and Trade-A-Plane for a few weeks, there are a number of Bravos out there for sale. I'm talking to Jimmy Garrison at GMax Aviation and will see what he can scare up before I make a decision on anything on the open market. But thanks for posting the link anyway. 

I’ll be interested to hear how insurance treats you too.  Clearly appears you didn’t cause the accident and you did a great job handling it, but will your next insurance quote be raised significantly? That would frustrate me…

[aviatoreb]

CoffeeCan, I am so glad to hear you had a successful outcome.  Airplanes are metal and rubber and leather bits.  You are invaluable and you came out unscathed.

Your incident gave me flashbacks to an engine failure I had about 3.5 years ago.  Its written about here.  I too was lucky and came out unscathed.  Some similarities.  I lost most of my oil pressure but there was smoke and the turbo was burning the oil and the turbo seized at 16.5k causing sudden complete engine stoppage.  I had to treat it as if it was a fire in the engine since the smoke gave me worry.  Anyway that's all written about here - if you search the word sake you will find a picture of me drinking sake at the hotel where I had not planned to spend a night, shaken but healthy.  I had the luck to find an airport and land dead stick on a runway with no damage.  The thing I wanted to express to you besides thankfulness for yours and my good success is two things.  One is that you mentioned you had luck - and you did!  But to some degree we improve our luck by our choices.  Flying high, in good vfr helped.  I was flying high which gave me space to find an airport. Although clearly they are closer together in the east.  Anyway I only fly day, and if ifr I only fly over mvfr conditions, exactly in case of a situation like this, knock on wood, to improve chances.  The other thing I wanted to say was I did a lot of second guessing but over all, I am at peace that I did what I could and mostly right, and a good outcome is good, so same for you!  AND that I wanted to be sure not to then get complacent.

Here's to your health, my health, and to everyone else reading here, and to good flying.

Edited November 14, 2021 by aviatoreb

[JWJR]

Is this the same plane that was overheard vis radio having an engine out emergency in a recent Man and a Mooney YouTube video? The fella that makes the video was flying in Colorado and heard the other Mooney make a distress call. If I recall the plane was in southern Colorado and landed on a dirt road.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[toto]

1 hour ago, JWJR said:

Is this the same plane that was overheard vis radio having an engine out emergency in a recent Man and a Mooney YouTube video? The fella that makes the video was flying in Colorado and heard the other Mooney make a distress call. If I recall the plane was in southern Colorado and landed on a dirt road.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

He's @Christian here on MS.  Might remember the tail number from that call.

[Christian]

Not the same plane. The plane I overheard was N4328H - a J model Mooney. The pilot that day was Paul Doxey who did an excellent job of landing on a dirt road near Salida. The cause of that engine stoppage was a mag failure on a single drive magneto engine.

[steingar]

May I do as well when the brown stuff hits the air conditioning.  Fine piece of aviating.

[Hank]

It's all in the Aeronautical Decision Making.

When my vacation takeoff run seemed long, I thought it was because I had forgotten to lower flaps. But I was only climbing at 400 fpm, and nothing I did made it better. Wait, do I hear some roughness? Had an anxious 5 minute flight, don't think I got 3 nm from the field. Went back for a runup, no go on the right mag. Gave up after pulling, cleaning all plugs, then swapping top for bottom, right mag was 250-300 RPM drop every time.

Next time, I will try to decide quicker. There was no reason to leave the pattern that day . . . . Ended up replacing one lead from the right mag, on my one-year-old wiring harness.

The pilot of N5779R did well, and made the right decisions, followed by the correct actions. Thus the good results. 

[Mooney in Oz]

22 hours ago, Christian said:

The cause of that engine stoppage was a mag failure on a single drive magneto engine.

Do you know if it was magneto separation?

[EricJ]

5 hours ago, Mooney in Oz said:

Do you know if it was magneto separation?

There's a thread here somewhere about it with a lot of pics.   The airplane was helicoptered out to an airport.    The mag had come loose from the accessory case enough to stop operating.   The airplane was only a few hours out of annual if I recall correctly, and the last I heard the owners were going to try to reach a resolution with the shop.   I don't know if there's been any news since, but the airplane was successfully recovered.   The whole thing was an interesting story with a successful off airport landing and a successful recovery of the airplane.