Can you believe this still ran?

[bcg]

While they were moving my spark plugs around yesterday in Alabama, the mechanic told me to go take a look at an engine on a hoist.  This is what I saw when I went over there.  The mechanic says it happened to the guy at 2800 feet on climb out and the engine ran and made some power long enough for him to turn around and get back on the ground.  It's amazing to me that it did.  Some of the parts that came off ended up putting a hole in the cowling.  I'm not sure how long it took them to remove the seat from the pilot.

[Vance Harral]

This sort of thing is always a little surprising, but it's not that uncommon.  An engine with multiple cylinders will often continue to produce power even after throwing a rod.

A few years ago, I worked for a company that had a data center with an emergency backup diesel generator.  They hadn't tested it in ages, which is obviously not great management.  Anyway, one day the power went out, the generator cranked up, and after a few minutes it broke a rod in such a manner that the flailing rod sawed the crankcase completely in half.  But because of the way the engine was mounted, the crankshaft was still fairly well supported.  It ran like that for a couple of hours before anyone went over to investigate the noise they had previously assumed was just normal.

[N201MKTurbo]

People are always criticizing our ancient aircraft engines, but the main design goal is reliability. This just goes to prove how good out engines really are.

 Even with this catastrophic  failure, it got you home. 

[exM20K]

If that is at Fairhope, at least the unfortunate owner won’t spend much on shipping for his or her new case.

-dan

[EricJ]

I've seen that before and also seen a lot of pics of those Continentals with a ventilated crankcase where the rod knocked one of the mags off the case.     Years ago when my airplane was AOG at Wickenberg the guy at the shop there sent us into the next hangar to see a Baron that had landed with one engine running and the other like that.   Apparently it may have been a traumatic experience as the airplane immediately went up for sale.

[MikeOH]

48 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Apparently it may have been a traumatic experience as the airplane immediately went up for sale.

Yeah, if that happened with my wife aboard...'For Sale' would be the likely outcome!

[philiplane]

It's yet another big Continental with a hole in the case. It seems to always be #2 or #6. 

[MikeOH]

10 minutes ago, philiplane said:

It's yet another big Continental with a hole in the case. It seems to always be #2 or #6. 

@philiplane

Interesting....Any pet theories on why?

[philiplane]

oil starvation due to main bearing shift, or other blockage of the oil system. I personally know of two dozen ventilated Continental cases over the past 25 years. But zero Lycomings, even though I've seen more large Lycomings over the same span. Lycoming failures tend to come from broken exhaust valves, and that doesn't trash the whole engine.

Also, since Continental camshafts are at the bottom of the case, all that extra oil just falls into the pan. The top mounted cam in a Lycoming spills its overflow oil onto the crankshaft. 

[bcg]

4 hours ago, exM20K said:

If that is at Fairhope, at least the unfortunate owner won’t spend much on shipping for his or her new case.

-dan

It is at Fairhope.