Dual mag failure, off-field landing

[Skyland]

I’m well overdue explaining my off-field landing incident on May 9 of this year, as a result of the D- 3000 dual mag failure. Caution – long write-up but hopefully there are some takeaway points of value here.

My wife and I departed from our home base in California for the Chicago area in our M20J as we’ve done many times before. Day 2 we took off from Page, AZ - direct Albuquerque - direct Salina, KS. Enroute at 11.5K nearing Albuquerque we began to hear what sounded like a very faint rattle emanating from the belly area. Listened for a bit and it started to get more frequent. Began troubleshooting to see if it might be engine related. Changed prop, mixture, throttle, pump, tanks with no affect. Best I recall all items on the engine monitor appeared normal. No change until switching to Left mag – nearly dead. Right mag was better but rough. Immediately turned to nearest airport. Declared an emergency with ABQ approach and informed the controller of my situation. Unfortunately, Double Eagle was a couple miles beyond the FF glide ring. Within the next couple minutes the left mag completely failed and had only partial power on the right, but that also failed in the next few minutes. Now it was truly an “oh darn” moment, or words to that effect. How both mags checked good during preflight and both were now failing was not a good feeling. All I knew was I needed to make the best of a bad situation. I tried to reassure my wife that the plane flies perfectly fine as a glider now, we have about ten minutes to reach the airport or find a good place to land and we’ll be alright.

We gained some ground on the glide ring as we continued but were battling some 40kt headwinds. Kept the aircraft clean and the glide speed faster than normal in an attempt to minimize time in those strong winds. Glider pilots minimize their time spent in sinking air by flying faster for the same reason. I kept Approach informed of our progress, that I had no power, that I thought it was a dual mag failure and that I might not be able to make the airport. Then came the standard issue question - say number of souls on board and fuel remaining. My wife remained remarkably calm throughout and even helped by scanning around for possible landing locations and obstructions. The fact that I am a fairly experienced glider pilot did help immensely in my opinion. During the entire power-off descent and landing it all seemed rather normal to me because every landing in a glider is an engine out landing. Airports are nice but fields work too. Approach handed me off and Tower had already cleared out traffic for the inbound emergency and cleared us for any runway but winds were strongly favoring 22. It is so gratifying and special to know the ATC professionals will do everything in their power to assist an aircraft in distress. Despite making up some glide distance, it was looking very iffy that we would be able to make the runway. Several miles out we identified what looked like a good open space short of the airport boundary clear of power lines and obstructions. It was our go to place if needed. At about 1000AGL those hangers, roads and fences on final approach looked like something we might not clear. Without hesitation I told the tower unable to make the runway and we're going for the field. The last thing I wanted to do was to try for the airport at all cost only to stretch the glide with disastrous results. As much as I love my Mooney the thought went through my mind to use the plane to save us. I rolled out parallel to the active into the strong headwind, lowered the gear and flaps and did a nice smooth full stall landing on the sandy desert floor. We looked at each other, did a quick embrace and said somewhat jokingly, well that wasn’t a bad landing. We ended up about 100 yards from the airport fence. Tower controller was watching the entire event and offered a big compliment. I let them know that the airplane appeared undamaged and no
injuries.

Emergency personnel soon began to arrive, followed by airport and FBO staff as well as the FAA. The largest fire in NM history was in progress and the last thing anyone wanted was an airplane crash to spark another blaze in the windy desert scrub. Everyone, and especially me, was relieved that the Mooney was sitting there unscathed. No damage to the prop or even the gear doors, not a scratch that I could see. Full stall landing into a strong wind on the semi-soft surface made for a very short landing. FAA measured the roll out at 322 feet.

The two gentlemen from the FAA were extremely nice but also professional. In fact one of them owns an F model so we bonded a bit. They did check the airplane for fuel and oil just to make sure I didn't do something really stupid. They took pictures of the plane as well as my documents and the airplane documents to verify everyone and everything was legal and current. Basically a ramp check in the desert. They also requested I send them scans of the latest annual logbook entries when I returned home.

After everyone was satisfied we were fine and all the paperwork was done, one of the maintenance guys offered to help with his small Jeep and a tow bar. It was an easy pull to perimeter road and onto the ramp.

Given the situation I’m extremely grateful for the outcome. Day VFR at cruise over a desert having just flown over rugged terrain. Luck played a big part but I’ll take it.

Those sounds at the beginning of the event were likely afterfires in the muffler due to incomplete combustion in the cylinders. One would think EGT would be spiking but the JPI 830 didn’t show that and the engine data doesn’t reflect anything out of the ordinary either from what I tell.

So what happened? The next morning I met an IA at the plane. We pulled the infamous D-3000 dual mag and right away observed that neither set of points was opening. That's on a recently overhauled mag with 209 hours on it replaced two years prior. Something caused both rubbing blocks to wear down prematurely – and remarkably simultaneously. I’m going with lack of lube because it appeared the oil pads on the points were dry with some fibers scattered about inside the distributor cap. But both sets, and simultaneously? Other commonalities to the failure could be bad surface finish on the common cam, contaminated lube, defective rubbing block material. So, bad parts or a bad rebuild?

The FAA says they are looking into it but who knows how long that will take or if anything will come of it. Maybe if more failures occur it will become a higher priority. In the meantime the mag was field repaired (points adjusted and oil wicks lubed, engine timing set) and I flew it back to my home base. It just came out of annual with an emphasis on looking for any possible damage due to the off-field landing. As mentioned, not a scratch or any problems found. I subsequently made that Chicago trip, without my wife this time, and the plane performed perfectly. I plan to have the point gaps checked every 50 hours to see if there is any trend or cause for concern.

Lessons learned.

When something doesn’t feel or sound right it might be worse than thought. Wasted a few precious minutes troubleshooting before turning to the airport.
Pulling back the prop might have improved the glide. Never trained for it, only read about it and being task saturated at the time didn’t think of it.

Forty plus years and thousands of hours, mostly in Mooneys, without an engine failure doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
I fly a Mooney for safety and its good looks, but also for its efficiency which means I frequently fly direct. Been rather cavalier about flying over inhospitable terrain. My glider buddies call that Tiger country.
Glider experience helped. Kept things somewhat routine.
Stay current and legal. You never know when a ramp check can occur.
Practice various emergencies. Commit important procedures to memory. Single pilot ops too task saturated or no time to look it up.
Squawk 7700 in an emergency. Didn’t think of it and wasn’t my highest priority. Hopefully missed my one and only opportunity. ATC already had me as an emergency.

Add more items to the survival kit. Could have been far from help or injured.
Love Mooneys but hate dual mags. I don’t want this incident to significantly change my flying. Unfortunately, it’s changed my wife’s flying. It was a rare event and the odds of it happening again are highly unlikely. However, the reason for this failure is largely unknown. I’m still flying with the same mag but checking Left and Right in flight now and especially before entering IFR conditions, nighttime or Tiger country.

Fly safe.

[EricJ]

Nicely done, and very glad for the outcome.

 

[whiskytango]

Excellent Aeronautical Decision-Making!!

[N201MKTurbo]

1 hour ago, Skyland said:

I’m well overdue explaining my off-field landing incident on May 9 of this year, as a result of the D- 3000 dual mag failure. Caution – long write-up but hopefully there are some takeaway points of value here.

My wife and I departed from our home base in California for the Chicago area in our M20J as we’ve done many times before. Day 2 we took off from Page, AZ - direct Albuquerque - direct Salina, KS. Enroute at 11.5K nearing Albuquerque we began to hear what sounded like a very faint rattle emanating from the belly area. Listened for a bit and it started to get more frequent. Began troubleshooting to see if it might be engine related. Changed prop, mixture, throttle, pump, tanks with no affect. Best I recall all items on the engine monitor appeared normal. No change until switching to Left mag – nearly dead. Right mag was better but rough. Immediately turned to nearest airport. Declared an emergency with ABQ approach and informed the controller of my situation. Unfortunately, Double Eagle was a couple miles beyond the FF glide ring. Within the next couple minutes the left mag completely failed and had only partial power on the right, but that also failed in the next few minutes. Now it was truly an “oh darn” moment, or words to that effect. How both mags checked good during preflight and both were now failing was not a good feeling. All I knew was I needed to make the best of a bad situation. I tried to reassure my wife that the plane flies perfectly fine as a glider now, we have about ten minutes to reach the airport or find a good place to land and we’ll be alright.

We gained some ground on the glide ring as we continued but were battling some 40kt headwinds. Kept the aircraft clean and the glide speed faster than normal in an attempt to minimize time in those strong winds. Glider pilots minimize their time spent in sinking air by flying faster for the same reason. I kept Approach informed of our progress, that I had no power, that I thought it was a dual mag failure and that I might not be able to make the airport. Then came the standard issue question - say number of souls on board and fuel remaining. My wife remained remarkably calm throughout and even helped by scanning around for possible landing locations and obstructions. The fact that I am a fairly experienced glider pilot did help immensely in my opinion. During the entire power-off descent and landing it all seemed rather normal to me because every landing in a glider is an engine out landing. Airports are nice but fields work too. Approach handed me off and Tower had already cleared out traffic for the inbound emergency and cleared us for any runway but winds were strongly favoring 22. It is so gratifying and special to know the ATC professionals will do everything in their power to assist an aircraft in distress. Despite making up some glide distance, it was looking very iffy that we would be able to make the runway. Several miles out we identified what looked like a good open space short of the airport boundary clear of power lines and obstructions. It was our go to place if needed. At about 1000AGL those hangers, roads and fences on final approach looked like something we might not clear. Without hesitation I told the tower unable to make the runway and we're going for the field. The last thing I wanted to do was to try for the airport at all cost only to stretch the glide with disastrous results. As much as I love my Mooney the thought went through my mind to use the plane to save us. I rolled out parallel to the active into the strong headwind, lowered the gear and flaps and did a nice smooth full stall landing on the sandy desert floor. We looked at each other, did a quick embrace and said somewhat jokingly, well that wasn’t a bad landing. We ended up about 100 yards from the airport fence. Tower controller was watching the entire event and offered a big compliment. I let them know that the airplane appeared undamaged and no
injuries.

Emergency personnel soon began to arrive, followed by airport and FBO staff as well as the FAA. The largest fire in NM history was in progress and the last thing anyone wanted was an airplane crash to spark another blaze in the windy desert scrub. Everyone, and especially me, was relieved that the Mooney was sitting there unscathed. No damage to the prop or even the gear doors, not a scratch that I could see. Full stall landing into a strong wind on the semi-soft surface made for a very short landing. FAA measured the roll out at 322 feet.

The two gentlemen from the FAA were extremely nice but also professional. In fact one of them owns an F model so we bonded a bit. They did check the airplane for fuel and oil just to make sure I didn't do something really stupid. They took pictures of the plane as well as my documents and the airplane documents to verify everyone and everything was legal and current. Basically a ramp check in the desert. They also requested I send them scans of the latest annual logbook entries when I returned home.

After everyone was satisfied we were fine and all the paperwork was done, one of the maintenance guys offered to help with his small Jeep and a tow bar. It was an easy pull to perimeter road and onto the ramp.

Given the situation I’m extremely grateful for the outcome. Day VFR at cruise over a desert having just flown over rugged terrain. Luck played a big part but I’ll take it.

Those sounds at the beginning of the event were likely afterfires in the muffler due to incomplete combustion in the cylinders. One would think EGT would be spiking but the JPI 830 didn’t show that and the engine data doesn’t reflect anything out of the ordinary either from what I tell.

So what happened? The next morning I met an IA at the plane. We pulled the infamous D-3000 dual mag and right away observed that neither set of points was opening. That's on a recently overhauled mag with 209 hours on it replaced two years prior. Something caused both rubbing blocks to wear down prematurely – and remarkably simultaneously. I’m going with lack of lube because it appeared the oil pads on the points were dry with some fibers scattered about inside the distributor cap. But both sets, and simultaneously? Other commonalities to the failure could be bad surface finish on the common cam, contaminated lube, defective rubbing block material. So, bad parts or a bad rebuild?

The FAA says they are looking into it but who knows how long that will take or if anything will come of it. Maybe if more failures occur it will become a higher priority. In the meantime the mag was field repaired (points adjusted and oil wicks lubed, engine timing set) and I flew it back to my home base. It just came out of annual with an emphasis on looking for any possible damage due to the off-field landing. As mentioned, not a scratch or any problems found. I subsequently made that Chicago trip, without my wife this time, and the plane performed perfectly. I plan to have the point gaps checked every 50 hours to see if there is any trend or cause for concern.

Lessons learned.

When something doesn’t feel or sound right it might be worse than thought. Wasted a few precious minutes troubleshooting before turning to the airport.
Pulling back the prop might have improved the glide. Never trained for it, only read about it and being task saturated at the time didn’t think of it.

Forty plus years and thousands of hours, mostly in Mooneys, without an engine failure doesn’t mean it can’t happen.
I fly a Mooney for safety and its good looks, but also for its efficiency which means I frequently fly direct. Been rather cavalier about flying over inhospitable terrain. My glider buddies call that Tiger country.
Glider experience helped. Kept things somewhat routine.
Stay current and legal. You never know when a ramp check can occur.
Practice various emergencies. Commit important procedures to memory. Single pilot ops too task saturated or no time to look it up.
Squawk 7700 in an emergency. Didn’t think of it and wasn’t my highest priority. Hopefully missed my one and only opportunity. ATC already had me as an emergency.

Add more items to the survival kit. Could have been far from help or injured.
Love Mooneys but hate dual mags. I don’t want this incident to significantly change my flying. Unfortunately, it’s changed my wife’s flying. It was a rare event and the odds of it happening again are highly unlikely. However, the reason for this failure is largely unknown. I’m still flying with the same mag but checking Left and Right in flight now and especially before entering IFR conditions, nighttime or Tiger country.

Fly safe.

I've had the points stop opening 3 times since I've owned my 201. Never both at the same time. Good job getting the plane down in one piece.

[GeeBee]

Really nice job! Excellent thinking and management.

Maybe time to look at the Electro Air that replaces the D-3000? Got to be better than the D-3000.

[Ragsf15e]

Flying gliders is great “hip pocket” experience when it gets real quiet and you need to pick a reasonable place to set it down safely.  Glad you didn’t have to pull the wings and trailer it though!  Well done.

[201Steve]

Awesome job! Hate to hear that, though. Thanks for the write up, I’m always interested in dual mag issues. This is, for me, the first one I’ve heard failing for another reason outside of improper clamps or torque (falling off), which is pretty simple to keep track of. 
 

lightening never strikes in the same place twice so you’re good now! 

[KSMooniac]

Very nice job!

Who did the last mag service or inspection? Check out electroair as mentioned above. I'm going that route soon.

Sent from my LM-V450 using Tapatalk

[toto]

3 hours ago, GeeBee said:

Really nice job! Excellent thinking and management.

Maybe time to look at the Electro Air that replaces the D-3000? Got to be better than the D-3000.

My D3000 inspection this year was $3000 at Kelly, and I seriously considered going the ElectroAir route —- but since dual mag failures are rare and they’ve been basically reliable mags for the IO-360 “D” fleet, I figured I’d rather do the next 500 hours on a D3000 than be a guinea pig for an electronic ignition. 

If anyone does install the ElectroAir mag, I’m very very eager to hear about it. I’m hopeful that the early adopter problems are all worked out by the time I need a new mag

 

 

[M20S Driver]

Nicely done captain and thanks for sharing the experience.  

[LANCECASPER]

On 8/15/2022 at 9:54 PM, toto said:

My D3000 inspection this year was $3000 at Kelly, and I seriously considered going the ElectroAir route —- but since dual mag failures are rare and they’ve been basically reliable mags for the IO-360 “D” fleet, I figured I’d rather do the next 500 hours on a D3000 than be a guinea pig for an electronic ignition. 

If anyone does install the ElectroAir mag, I’m very very eager to hear about it. I’m hopeful that the early adopter problems are all worked out by the time I need a new mag

 

 

Kelly does not have a good reputation for mag inspections or overhauls. This experience confirms why. Depending on how many hours you have on your engine, considering the fact that Lycoming wants to get the dual mag setup retired from the field, I would share your experience with Lycoming and especially Kelly and see what they would do for you toward the replacement engine with the separate mags, roller tappets, etc. I don't believe in frivolous lawsuits but Kelly's actions, or lack thereof, could easily have killed you and your wife. Think of what they would be paying right now if a fatality occurred. An engine swap is small change in comparison.

[toto]

2 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

Kelly does not have a good reputation for mag inspections or overhauls. This experience confirms why. Depending on how many hours you have on your engine, considering the fact that Lycoming wants to get the dual mag setup retired from the field, I would share you experience with Lycoming and especially Kelly and see what they would do for you toward the replacement engine with the separate mags, roller tappets, etc. I don't believe in frivolous lawsuits but Kelly's actions, or lack thereof, could easily have killed you and your wife. Think of what they would be paying right now if a fatality occurred. An engine swap is small change in comparison.

I'm not sure where @Skyland had his mags serviced - my recently-inspected mags have been okay so far..  I spent a lot of time researching different shops, and everyone seems to have good and bad experiences with each.  Kelly is the only shop with a PMA for every part of the dual-mag, which I thought was an advantage, until they decided that every part (including the housing) was bad and needed to be replaced.

[Skyland]

My dual mag was overhauled by QAA.  Trade in, I sent them back my core.

[201Steve]

1 hour ago, LANCECASPER said:

Kelly does not have a good reputation for mag inspections or overhauls. This experience confirms why.

Lance, he did not use Kelly- to bring clarity to that comment.

[LANCECASPER]

22 minutes ago, 201Steve said:

Lance, he did not use Kelly- to bring clarity to that comment.

Ah I just caught that it was @toto that used Kelly. 

[kortopates]

1 hour ago, Skyland said:

My dual mag was overhauled by QAA.  Trade in, I sent them back my core.

QAA doesn't have a reputation for quality either, despite what the Q stands for  They're popular because their capabilities list is so exhaustive a shop doesn't need to search any further to find some one to repair something.

[kortopates]

13 hours ago, KSMooniac said:

Very nice job!

Who did the last mag service or inspection? Check out electroair as mentioned above. I'm going that route soon.

Sent from my LM-V450 using Tapatalk
 

I'd seriously avoid being an early adopter of the Electroair dual mag, they don't have a good track record with the single mag installations. Their technology on the single mags is very outdated and problems are so numerous that many adopter have reverted back to their old mag after their tech support staff has been unable to correct issues in a timely matter. I'd be very wary of them till we have ample time to see how they do.

[LANCECASPER]

1 hour ago, kortopates said:

QAA doesn't have a reputation for quality either, despite what the Q stands for  They're popular because their capabilities list is so exhaustive a shop doesn't need to search any further to find some one to repair something.

My experience with QAA confirms that - the only place you'll find Quality with QAA is in their name . . . not their work.

It's kinda like back in the 70's when American automotive quality wasn't there . . .   So Ford marketing tried to do damage control on that point with ads that said "At Ford Quality is Job 1". The problem is that quality at Ford at that time was also job 2, job 3, job 4, etc.

[RobertGary1]

Nice. A couple comments from my engine out experience...

1) Once the FAA determined my engine failure was due to a Lycoming defect they lost all interest. They were only interested in missed inspection, maintenance.

2) They never asked me for my logbook. They pointed out that with Wings they already have our BFR on file.

 

 

-Robert

[Guest]

I’d still take a well maintained D3000 over the newer options.  We had two Surefly failures on a Cirrus this year, so I remain doubtful.

[RobertGary1]

34 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

I’d still take a well maintained D3000 over the newer options.  We had two Surefly failures on a Cirrus this year, so I remain doubtful.

My new Lycoming came with new slick mags. A year later got an SB to replace them for premature wear. Lycoming paid for that. Then a year after that another SB for the same on the replaced ones. Didn’t respond to that as it was on me 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, RobertGary1 said:

My new Lycoming came with new slick mags. A year later got an SB to replace them for premature wear. Lycoming paid for that. Then a year after that another SB for the same on the replaced ones. Didn’t respond to that as it was on me 

Slick magnetos haven’t been known for reliability since Champion bought the company.  Our local engine guy had one fall apart on the test stand, trashed the accessory gear box on a freshly overhauled engine.

[jetdriven]

We use the same shop Maxwell uses for dual mags. Aero accessories of Van Nuys. Aircraft magneto service in Missoula MT for everything else. 

[jetdriven]

@Skyland who did that mag?

[Skyland]

QAA