My first declared emergency

[gabez]

Well, I was planning on going to Placerville yesterday when half way there on a descent I felt a jolt, looked around and the engine monitor showed #1 flat - no combustion. I initiated a controlled descent looked around and found Lodi as the closest option. I was about 5000 feet and maybe 10 miles out, I still had some power. As I was descending #1 CHT comeback and EGT was very high. I declared an emergency on 121.5 and got to the airport safe, called the number and they asked me a few questions and that was it. 

After words I called my mechanic he suspected a clogged injector so I painfully restarted the plane (my mooney it's never hard to start even super hot) did a run up, checked fine all cylinders firing, it felt a little rough and the engine temp was very high (90f OAT). Anyway I gave it a go after doing 2 runups and 2 fast taxing on the runway and after taking off it felt soft on power, I was pulling 40inc and 2700 rpm but wasn't claiming right and it felt rough. I landed it and started uber hopping back to Watsonville. 

 

perhaps a stuck intake valve? 

 

Thank you Gabe

[redbaron1982]

I'm kind of newbie with airplanes, so my comment here is based just in general knowledge of ICE.

What you've described, mainly very hight EGT, wouldn't point more toward a stacked exhaust valve rather than intake? I mean, if you have some of the mixture going out the exhaust valve and burning in the exhaust pipe that would increase your EGR significantly.

An advise is to avoid giving subjective statements like "very high" and instead specify the actual number. That can help experienced people (not my case) to provide better advice.

Great call in declaring the emergency in the first place! Not so great call in taking off again without knowing what caused the first issue, usually problems don't fix by themselves.

[GeeBee]

You did the right thing declaring an emergency. So many pilots are loathe to do it, when it is free, easy and gets a lot of resources in your direction. Good job.

 

[Aerodon]

Problems generally don't fix themselves, airplanes talk to you, quietly at first, then more loudly until they do something to really get your attention.  Also, be aware that there is a record of all incidents, emergencies and even IFR diversions from destinations.  I do not know how many make it up the chain to the FAA.

So good on you for reporting an emergency and getting all the assistance necessary to get on the ground safely.

But bad on you for taking off again with fixing something.  You have essentially made a 'logbook entry' that there was a problem, making the airplane not airworthy until it is repaired and signed off.  Regardless of what you mechanic told you over the phone, it does not rise to the level of a repair and sign off?

Just imagine for a second, calling your insurance company on Monday morning and telling them you had a problem, landed, then tried taking off again and ended up in a field (or worse).  And when the FAA and insurance company find your confession on the web, they will deny coverage and write you up. I know of one Piper Arrow written off at our local airfield where the insurance company denied coverage (for good reason).  One day the owner had a plane, the next he had a bunch of bent parts.

I not trying to be too critical of your actions, I think the whole process of writing up snags and repairs is poorly understood.  And I know how difficult it is to find intermittent faults and trace 'unusual noises', bangs, vibrations etc.  Once you have an issue, especially one important enough to report an emergency, you need an equally strong corrective action.  The test is simple: how is this going to look to my insurance company and the FAA if something goes wrong?  

I've had one cylinder failure with  TSIO360 - after levelling off, a definite jolt and then relatively smooth running.  But the exhaust valve on one cylinder failed and bits went through the turbo.  And then after a new cylinder, remaining bits in the induction system went through the other cylinders.  It got really expensive really quickly.

So do yourself a favour, analyze your engine date, get all cylinders borescoped, look at all sparkplugs etc. until you find something.

Aerodon

 

 

[ilovecornfields]

1 hour ago, Aerodon said:

But bad on you for taking off again with fixing something.  You have essentially made a 'logbook entry' that there was a problem, making the airplane not airworthy until it is repaired and signed off.  Regardless of what you mechanic told you over the phone, it does not rise to the level of a repair and sign off?

Could you explain this? How did he make a “logbook entry” and what legal relevance does this have? If you post something on Mooneyspace then that makes your plane unairworthy and requires an A&P to sign off on it?

[DCarlton]

6 hours ago, GeeBee said:

You did the right thing declaring an emergency. So many pilots are loathe to do it, when it is free, easy and gets a lot of resources in your direction. Good job.

 

Yep.  I waited once to declare an emergency thinking I could get the plane on the ground without all the fanfare.  Then I was told I was number four for landing.  :/  Needless to say I then declared an emergency but it made it harder for the tower to facilitate the landing and get everyone else out of the way.  Ended up using every inch of a 5000 foot runway.  :>  

[GeeBee]

2 hours ago, ilovecornfields said:

Could you explain this? How did he make a “logbook entry” and what legal relevance does this have? If you post something on Mooneyspace then that makes your plane unairworthy and requires an A&P to sign off on it?

Once you declare an emergency in the form of a mechanical issue, you need to have the issue resolved before taking off again. Under Part 91, either by the pilot's physical inspection, i.e. "I found a spark plug lead loose and I tightened it" (permitted owner/pilot action under part 43) or by a mechanic's signature if a major repair is required. (Part 121 and 135 is a whole other kettle of fish) I once had the owner of an Aerostar on leaseback to me, lose an engine. He declared an emergency and landed. He called and after a description of events, I told him to go nowhere until I got a mechanic to him to look at it. He got impatient, fired up the engine, it ran rough but turned up full power. He departed and returned back to home base where we found it had swallowed an exhaust valve that rattled around in the cylinder all the way back. The next day the FAA called and wanted to know where the airplane was since it was not at the divert airport. You know what happened next and he was violated for operating an un-airworthy aircraft.

[ilovecornfields]

29 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

Once you declare an emergency in the form of a mechanical issue, you need to have the issue resolved before taking off again. Under Part 91, either by the pilot's physical inspection, i.e. "I found a spark plug lead loose and I tightened it" (permitted owner/pilot action under part 43) or by a mechanic's signature if a major repair is required. (Part 121 and 135 is a whole other kettle of fish) I once had the owner of an Aerostar on leaseback to me, lose an engine. He declared an emergency and landed. He called and after a description of events, I told him to go nowhere until I got a mechanic to him to look at it. He got impatient, fired up the engine, it ran rough but turned up full power. He departed and returned back to home base where we found it had swallowed an exhaust valve that rattled around in the cylinder all the way back. The next day the FAA called and wanted to know where the airplane was since it was not at the divert airport. You know what happened next and he was violated for operating an un-airworthy aircraft.

Interesting. I once had an engine run rough and declared an emergency and made a precautionary landing. I sent the info to Savvy using my iPad and visited a mechanic on the field who thought it was a clogged injector that had cleared. He pulled the injector, found nothing, put it back together and I flew home. Never heard from anyone else again. I didn’t have my logbooks with me so there was no logbook entry when I flew home. Was this a violation of the FARs? How do you prove the issue is “resolved” if you don’t find anything?  If I hadn’t declared an emergency would that change the legality of the situation?

I appreciate your thoughtful responses and your expertise.

[Aerodon]

1 hour ago, ilovecornfields said:

Could you explain this? How did he make a “logbook entry” and what legal relevance does this have? If you post something on Mooneyspace then that makes your plane unairworthy and requires an A&P to sign off on it?

I could have worded that better.  By posting your actions on a public or semi public website you have created a record that is equivalent to writing something up in your logbook - so think about what you are posting and whether your actions will withstand the scrutiny of the FAA and your insurance company.  Once you have a reason good enough for an emergency, in this case a technical problem, I would say you need to have some corrective action taken before further flight.  I get it that intermittent problems are hard to troubleshoot, and maybe you and your maintenance guy come to some conclusion over the phone.  In my experience, fouled plugs and blocked injectors do not clear themselves.   

A local pilot had alternator failure and came back to our controlled airport with no radio.  Then he did the same thing again a week or so later.  So then Transport Canada investigated, found an improper installation, improper troubleshooting and no repair.  Both pilot and maintenance organization got fined.  An Aerostar crashed locally killing the very experienced owner and a not so experienced pilot.  It did not take long to find out that the less experienced pilot was flying, the KI256 AI was misbehaving (in fact a service appointment had been booked the next day).  Weather was IFR, track log showed low groundspeed and a flightpath consistent with stall and spin.

Here's an accident that killed a third party - guaranteed lawsuit:  https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/248835.   By all accounts it looks like a couple of guys trying to resolve an issue and then going flying anyway.  Read the witness accounts and now imagine the lawyers digging through all the electronic data, logbook entires etc.

The FAA and NTSB do troll websites and obtain all relevant data when investigating incidents (and violations). Just look at the enforcement actions taken on pilots for posting videos.   And insurance companies hire experts to review your logbooks, your training records, flight experience etc.

The point I am trying to make is that if we get into the habit of asking ourselves what this is going to look like tomorrow, we get into the habit of making better decisions.   Back to the OP - he had an engine issue and declared an emergency.  He made a phone call or two and did a runup.  And then tried again, and still had a problem.  And then confessed on the inter web.  Now just imagine he crashed after takeoff, how is this all going to look?

Aerodon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Aerodon]

3 minutes ago, ilovecornfields said:

Interesting. I once had an engine run rough and declared an emergency and made a precautionary landing. I sent the info to Savvy using my iPad and visited a mechanic on the field who thought it was a clogged injector that had cleared. He pulled the injector, found nothing, put it back together and I flew home. Never heard from anyone else again. I didn’t have my logbooks with me so there was no logbook entry when I flew home. Was this a violation of the FARs? How do you prove the issue is “resolved” if you don’t find anything?  If I hadn’t declared an emergency would that change the legality of the situation?

I appreciate your thoughtful responses and your expertise.

Here's an FAA brochure to provide some guidance. 

SE_Topic_19-05.pdf

[EricJ]

Say you do a pre-takeoff runup and everything is fine, but during the takeoff roll the engine runs rough and you abort.    You return to a runup area and after a few runups the issue clears and remains clear.    You then depart for your destination with an uneventful flight.    Is there something wrong with doing that?

1 hour ago, ilovecornfields said:

Interesting. I once had an engine run rough and declared an emergency and made a precautionary landing. I sent the info to Savvy using my iPad and visited a mechanic on the field who thought it was a clogged injector that had cleared. He pulled the injector, found nothing, put it back together and I flew home. Never heard from anyone else again. I didn’t have my logbooks with me so there was no logbook entry when I flew home. Was this a violation of the FARs? How do you prove the issue is “resolved” if you don’t find anything?  If I hadn’t declared an emergency would that change the legality of the situation?

Maintainers don't evaluate an aircraft's airworthiness except during a 100-hour or annual or equivalent inspection.   Determining airworthiness for a flight rests with the pilot.

 

[ilovecornfields]

52 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Say you do a pre-takeoff runup and everything is fine, but during the takeoff roll the engine runs rough and you abort.    You return to a runup area and after a few runups the issue clears and remains clear.    You then depart for your destination with an uneventful flight.    Is there something wrong with doing that?

Maintainers don't evaluate an aircraft's airworthiness except during a 100-hour or annual or equivalent inspection.   Determining airworthiness for a flight rests with the pilot.

 

This is the part that’s confusing me. When does the airplane have to be “returned to service?” I’d never heard before that declaring an emergency or posting something on a message board created that requirement. 

[Joshua Blackh4t]

As someone who has been caught by things I posted on a flying forum, I can see the words of caution, but i don't believe that anything illegal happened.

If I declare an emergency because of temporary issue (carb ice) or a non-mechanical issue (weather, medical, a spider in the cabin and female passengers etc) then I won't have to mechanically re-clear the plane.

However, apparently in Australia a Mayday call gets the ambulance sent out automatically and once they say you're alive, they can send you a bill. I wasn't impressed. I complained about it and it got cancelled.

The only question is: did the pilot confirm that the aircraft was airworthy before take-off?

In my opinion, getting the advice of a mechanic and ground running would seem like enough for me. But I could see an insurance company having trouble with it.

[ttflyer]

9 hours ago, EricJ said:

Say you do a pre-takeoff runup and everything is fine, but during the takeoff roll the engine runs rough and you abort.    You return to a runup area and after a few runups the issue clears and remains clear.    You then depart for your destination with an uneventful flight.    Is there something wrong with doing that?

Maintainers don't evaluate an aircraft's airworthiness except during a 100-hour or annual or equivalent inspection.   Determining airworthiness for a flight rests with the pilot.

 

Obviously not the same thing but just a data point:  I fly a Challenger 350 for a living.  I was picking it up from a service center and during the initial takeoff roll, we got a CAS message and aborted the takeoff at about 40 knots (very low speed abort).  We taxied the airplane back to the service center and went to the hotel.  Two days later, plane fixed, we left.  About two weeks later, I get a call from a Local FAA FSDO inspector.  He wanted my story about what happened and how it was resolved including that there was a logbook entry for the repair.

So, if you abort at a towered airport, I'd take to a mechanic before I tried again...  My understanding is that anytime an airplane takes a runway for takeoff, if it doesn't takeoff, the tower is required to report it to the FAA.

Obviously at uncontrolled airports, this doesn't apply.  But be aware at towered airports...

[GeeBee]

10 hours ago, ilovecornfields said:

Interesting. I once had an engine run rough and declared an emergency and made a precautionary landing. I sent the info to Savvy using my iPad and visited a mechanic on the field who thought it was a clogged injector that had cleared. He pulled the injector, found nothing, put it back together and I flew home. Never heard from anyone else again. I didn’t have my logbooks with me so there was no logbook entry when I flew home. Was this a violation of the FARs? How do you prove the issue is “resolved” if you don’t find anything?  If I hadn’t declared an emergency would that change the legality of the situation?

I appreciate your thoughtful responses and your expertise.

The point is in your situation, maintenance action occurred. Even the act of sending the data to Savvy and nothing more is "maintenance action". In the case I posted about the Aerostar, no action occurred, not even a cowl removal and despite a rough but operating engine the pilot departed.  If you don't find anything, that is irrelevant, you properly took action to remedy the fault, transient though it may be. In the case of the Aerostar, the engine problem was still present and without maintenance action, he took to the air again. You want the documentation in your case, to prove maintenance action was taken in case the FAA wants a report. If you don't have the logbook, get a sticker or even a note that you can insert in the logbook.  The bottom line is once you declare an emergency for mechanical reasons, you've declared the airplane un-airworthy. The FAA may come a calling asking what you did to make it airworthy again. It may be as simple as "I inspected, ground ran and found no further problems", but you have to show you took prudent maintenance action.

[GeeBee]

26 minutes ago, ttflyer said:

Obviously not the same thing but just a data point:  I fly a Challenger 350 for a living.  I was picking it up from a service center and during the initial takeoff roll, we got a CAS message and aborted the takeoff at about 40 knots (very low speed abort).  We taxied the airplane back to the service center and went to the hotel.  Two days later, plane fixed, we left.  About two weeks later, I get a call from a Local FAA FSDO inspector.  He wanted my story about what happened and how it was resolved including that there was a logbook entry for the repair.

So, if you abort at a towered airport, I'd take to a mechanic before I tried again...  My understanding is that anytime an airplane takes a runway for takeoff, if it doesn't takeoff, the tower is required to report it to the FAA.

Obviously at uncontrolled airports, this doesn't apply.  But be aware at towered airports...

That is correct. I also suspect that once the report was made, the FAA looked at your N-Number and found you are under either an air carrier certificate or FAA special continuous maintenance program of which most business jets operate and that triggered the call. (As I said, they are a whole other kettle of fish)

[ttflyer]

6 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

That is correct. I also suspect that once the report was made, the FAA looked at your N-Number and found you are under either an air carrier certificate or FAA special continuous maintenance program of which most business jets operate and that triggered the call. (As I said, they are a whole other kettle of fish)

So since it sounds like you know more about this then I do, are you saying that since a Mooney isn't on a "special continuous maintenance program" the FAA wouldn't pursue the issue?  Seems like the opposite would make more sense.  Since a Challenger 350 is obviously maintained to higher standards then a Mooney, you would think the FAA would assume it would have the logbook entry.  Whereas the Mooney pilot....

I would think that for the purpose of enforcement action, a plane is a plane and a pilot is a pilot to the FAA...  But I'm no expert.  As a pro-pilot who earns my livelihood with my pilot's license, I'd take my Mooney to a mechanic if I aborted a takeoff at a towered airport.  But light GA has a very wide range of approaches to safety. 

 

[Fly Boomer]

1 hour ago, ttflyer said:

I would think that for the purpose of enforcement action, a plane is a plane and a pilot is a pilot to the FAA...  But I'm no expert.  As a pro-pilot who earns my livelihood with my pilot's license, I'd take my Mooney to a mechanic if I aborted a takeoff at a towered airport.  But light GA has a very wide range of approaches to safety. 

I have been thinking through all the potential reasons I might abort a takeoff at a towered airport.  In most cases, if I took it to an on-field mechanic, I would get the blank stare because they are not mechanical in nature.

[GeeBee]

36 minutes ago, ttflyer said:

So since it sounds like you know more about this then I do, are you saying that since a Mooney isn't on a "special continuous maintenance program" the FAA wouldn't pursue the issue?  Seems like the opposite would make more sense.  Since a Challenger 350 is obviously maintained to higher standards then a Mooney, you would think the FAA would assume it would have the logbook entry.  Whereas the Mooney pilot....

I would think that for the purpose of enforcement action, a plane is a plane and a pilot is a pilot to the FAA...  But I'm no expert.  As a pro-pilot who earns my livelihood with my pilot's license, I'd take my Mooney to a mechanic if I aborted a takeoff at a towered airport.  But light GA has a very wide range of approaches to safety. 

 

They could and would if said Mooney was on a Part 135 certificate. The FAA has limited resources and they prioritize for hire operations, and operations that have operations specifications which they oversee such as special continuous maintenance programs because they rely both upon the manufacturer and the operators to keep them informed of reliability issues and statistics which affects the FAA's regulation of the operations.

 

[ttflyer]

8 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

I have been thinking through all the potential reasons I might abort a takeoff at a towered airport.  In most cases, if I took it to an on-field mechanic, I would get the blank stare because they are not mechanical in nature.

Well, as long as you have a good reason, I think you'd be fine.  Aborted for "rough running engine", leaned it out and it passed the mag check would probably be fine I guess. No question that I have to change my thought processes in the Mooney vs the Challenger.  It's honestly been a challenge as the risk profiles are very different and I'm trained to be very risk adverse at work.  Doesn't always apply to the Mooney!

[EricJ]

10 hours ago, ilovecornfields said:

This is the part that’s confusing me. When does the airplane have to be “returned to service?” I’d never heard before that declaring an emergency or posting something on a message board created that requirement. 

A mechanic's "return to service" is their signature in a logbook after performing maintenance.   It is not a statement of airworthiness of the airplane, it is just a statement that any work performed was done properly according to approved or accepted methods, etc., and the aircraft can be returned to service.  

If no "maintenance" is performed, e.g., something is just checked, a logbook entry is often not made.   Logbooks would get awfully cluttered with useless entries if records were made every time something just got looked at. 

Regardless, the pilot determines airworthiness, period. 

[GeeBee]

7 minutes ago, ttflyer said:

Well, as long as you have a good reason, I think you'd be fine.  Aborted for "rough running engine", leaned it out and it passed the mag check would probably be fine I guess. No question that I have to change my thought processes in the Mooney vs the Challenger.  It's honestly been a challenge as the risk profiles are very different and I'm trained to be very risk adverse at work.  Doesn't always apply to the Mooney!

It is not just a inquiry as to mechanical. For instance if the FAA saw a lot of aborts of a given air carrier and discovered said aborts were due to the configuration warning sounding, the FAA would start looking into procedures and checklists.

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

Even the act of sending the data to Savvy and nothing more is "maintenance action". 

The term "maintenance action" doesn't seem to have any relevance to Part 91.    Anyone can share data about their airplane, even with a mechanic, without requiring a logbook entry or any kind of formal follow-up.   

[ilovecornfields]

1 hour ago, GeeBee said:

The bottom line is once you declare an emergency for mechanical reasons, you've declared the airplane un-airworthy.

Is this really true? What if your suspected “mechanical reason” ends up being a false alarm.  I’m not trying to argue with you but is there really an FAR or a legal interpretation that says “once you declare an emergency your airplane is unairworthy.” Seems like good advice to consider it unairworthy until proven otherwise but I don’t think this is a legal requirement.

[Pinecone]

Once you determine it to actually be a false alarm, you have "fixed" the issue.

They point is, what as done after the problem occured to determine that everything was OK. If the answer is "nothing" then there may be a problem with the FAA.