Emergency landing/Oil leak

[jnisley]

Last November, on an Angel Flight mission, just 20 minutes after leaving my home base (6G1), approximately  7 miles from YNG VOR, I noticed a film of oil on my windshield, I immediately requested to land at KYNG, we were in IMC so they gave me vectors for the ILS32 approach, very quickly my forward visibility was almost zero and we briefly had smoke in the cockpit so I declared an emergency. Within fifteen minutes or so we were safely landed. My forward visibility was so poor I had to use my side windows to land and taxi. Needless to say it was a wonderful sight to break out of the clouds and see 9000' of runway at my 12 o'clock, my AF passenger was great, he didn't utter one word until we were landed.

A maintenance crew from Winner Aviation (FBO) found a cracked flair fitting on the prop governor oil line (it was barely visible with the naked eye). In the 15 minutes it took to land the plane the engine lost four of its eight quarts of oil. No damage was done to the engine.   

Photo of cracked fitting attached, blue object is pen light.

If anyone cares to listen to the ATC recordings PM me your email and I'll send them to you.

[N601RX]

Was the line supported as called for in SB 488?  It also looks like it still had the aluminum nuts on it.

[MooneyMitch]

Hi Mike.

I'm looking for SB488.  Is that from Mooney please?

Thank you.

[jnisley]

Apparently not, but the new one is.

[jnisley]

??I couldn't find it on Lycoming's site

[N601RX]

Lycoming. There are 2 supports and the new line uses steel nuts

[N601RX]

Lycoming. There are 2 supports and the new line uses steel nuts

[N601RX]

Actually its SB 488A.  PM me with your e-mail address and I will e-mail it to you.

According the the SB the only ones that have cracked have had one or both supports missing.

[jnisley]

The new line has a steel nut and the line is reinforced (heavier wall) the last 1/2 inch or so.

[jetdriven]

http://www.yeeles.com/Lycoming_Reference/Service_Bulletins/SB488A.pdf

[MooneyMitch]

Got it, thank you.  Jolie's is done.

[KSMooniac]

Thanks for posting that, Byron.  I'm in the middle of my annual right now and will check my engine.  

John, nice work keeping calm and flying the plane!  Glad you got on the ground before you dumped all of your oil.

[jnisley]

Thanks for the info!

A scary way to learn about SB488A, at least this time it was "live and learn"

[N601RX]

Quote: jnisley

The new line has a steel nut and the line is reinforced (heavier wall) the last 1/2 inch or so.

[MooneyMitch]

Quote: N601RX

 You might want to look very closely at the 4 oil drainback tubes.  These will develope crack and rub through also.  They are not under pressure like the governor line, so they don't spray the oil out as fast.

[jnisley]

Thanks Mike, I'll have my mechanic check them out.

Which reminds me, a number of years ago during a test flight (after engine work) our alternator quite charging, my partner and I landed immediately, when we pulled up to the hanger we were trailing a stream of oil, (one of the mechanics failed to tighten one of the drain back lines (hoseclamps) The alternator was covered with oil which caused it to fail momentarily. (had it not failed........?)