Precautionary and Emergency Landings

[Seth]

A great deal of what is discussed on many aviation forums lead to information that saves lives.  I know many of us have had potential issues when flying while some have not.  Learning from these situations can only help us all as a whole.

Have you every made an emergency or precautionary landing?  If so, please give the details so that we can learn from it.  Was this landing on or off the airport?  Did you have full flight controls?  Engine power?  Weather issues?  Fire?  Etc . . .

I know it is a hard choice to make, but I've heard of people stuck in bad weather and simply landing on a road vs crashing due to the weather.  That would be a precautionary off airport landing for weather purposes. 

If you have made multiple emergency/precautionary landings, please use the greater emergency in the poll, but do tell us about it in body of your response.  I'll note mine in my next posting.

Thank you again to everyone for sharing - even if you didn't make a precuationary landing but maybe should have.

Take care,

-Seth

[Seth]

I have made two precuationary landings and probably should have made two more.

1.  During training in a 172.  I lost my alternator during my long cross country.  I realized it when my radio transmissions were not being picked up, no matter what I was trying.  I saw the low voltage reading (needle to the left) and diverted to the nearest airport.  It was VFR but being that I was "amped" up, I came in pretty fast and used a lot of the runway (didn't plan my decent that well with all of 25 or 30 hours at that point).  There were some wiring issues with the brand new alternator casusing some sort of short (probably why the replaced the old one).  I had turned off everything I could and when I got near the aiport turned the master back on to see if I could get the awos and talk on the radio - I was able to do both and the FBO / unicom was able to direct me to the maintenance bay when parking.

2.  Mooney Missile - After an oil change I took off and realize the cockpit was filling up with not smoke but thicker burninig oil type of misting smoke.  Immediatley annonuced that I was not departing the pattern and then landed.  During the first oil change some oil got on thte manifold inside the heat shroud which when it go hot, burned off the oil and thus filled the cockpit with a light burning oil smell and vision issues.

Both of these landings were at aiports and I did have enigne power for all of them. 

I'll post about my non precutionary landings that I should have made in a future post.

[David Mazer]

I have had two incidents with precautionary/emergency/priority landings. Both in an experimental airplane - a SeaRey  By priority landing I mean the circumstances warranted cutting to the front of the queue.

1. Immediately after taking off from a lake about 14 miles from my home base I knew the plane wasn't right.  I had good airspeed and the engine instruments all in the green but the rudder didn't act right.  It required too much rudder but it was very light and sensitive.  Flights in the SeaRey are usually done at low altitudes (500 - 1000 ft)  but after about 700 ft. the plane didn't feel right on the climb and I stayed there.  Normally I would descend to 500 in class C airspace but requested to remain at 700 just in case.  I made as few power adjustments as I could and landed without delay and without a problem.  On inspection both bolts that hold the engine mount to the plane had sheared off, the mount had cracked, and only one broken and bent bolt and the oil reservoir holder was left holding the engine in place.  The engine, a pusher style behind me, was canted with the propeller down and to the right.  The propeller missing the right flap by inches.  If I had known what was going on and the degree of the problem, I would have put it down anywhere and immediately.  Just by luck we made it to the airport.

2. Same airplane, after the engine mount was replaced with a stronger mount and the bolts with larger bolts, I noticed the oil temperature was a little higher than usual but still in the green.  Especially at higher power settings.  On a test flight around the pattern the oil pressure read zero and I requested an immediate landing on a crossing runway that caused a couple of people to have to go around.  In that case, one of the oil lines used in the re-installation was too thin walled on the vacuum side of the oil system causing it to collapse and cut off oil.  That was why it was too hot and eventually zero pressure.  No engine failure and no engine damage on oil analysis.

More than 100 hrs of incident free flying and my wife still won't get in the SeaRey.

[Bennett]

Not sure how to classify one  incident as precautionary or emergency.  A number of years ago I had a custom engine rebuilt by LASAR for my old M20K 261 conversion. Great engine by the way. I wanted just about everything replaced, new baffles, new oil cooler, new fuel pump, etc. I was on a break-in flight (mineral oil) from California to the East Coast, and I was in the low flight levels because the winds were favorable, and the airplane was more efficient at altitude. It was unusually cold at the altitude I was flying. Nothing much to do when on autopilot, so I kept up a tighter engine instrument scan than normal. To my concern (and facination) the oil pressure was continously dropping. It became apparant that I was having a problem, as the rate of lowering oil pressure was accelerating. Time to find an nearby airport. I was above the clouds, and so I started a IFR descent to Apple Valley, the closest airport. A couple of curious things happened when I set up to land. The oil pressure started to increase - to just about normal by the time I lined up on final. One runway was closed for some reason, and I was having a difficult time with some really variable strong crosswinds. I wasn't comfortable with the approach, so I set up to do a go around. By now the oil pressure was steady, and showing normal, so I decided to head for General Fox (Palmdale area) instead, as the winds would be more favorable there. I landed without incident, and called Paul at LASAR to describe the problem.  He understood it instantly. My new oil cooler was too efficient for the mineral break-in oil.  The oil was coagulating at high altitudes and the oil flow was slowing down to the point of showing a pressure drop.  Paul had me find (whole long story about this) an auto supply shop and purchase a foam air filter for a 1956 Chevrolet. It slipped very nicely over my oil cooler, and I was on my way again with no futher problems.  The filter was, of course, removed after I switched to normal oil. 

A second incident with this same aircraft was an emergency - I formally declared it as an emergency. Once again on a flight to Florida from San Carlos. In early winter, and I was at FL230 to take advantage of the winds. I was just above a cloud deck when the engine lost power.  It would run, but barely, and my first thought was that the turbocharger system had failed and that hot exhaust gas was spewing against the firewall. I changed fuel tanks, put the boost pump on (high position, then low position), tried each magneto, tried alternate mixture settings - nothing helped.   I could not maintain altitude, and so I called LA Center with my emergency call. I was roughly two thirds of the way between Big Bear and Palm Springs, so I decided that Palm Springs made the most sense. ATC cleared the airspace, issued vectors, and assigned me a descrete frequency for contact. When I was taking my Commercial instruction, my instructor kept making me practice the "commercial spiral".  I kept questioning him as to what use it could be. Now I knew. Being alarmed about the idea of hot gasses hiting the firewall, I wanted down NOW. I slowed the aircraft to about 110 KIAS, dropped the gear, lowered the flaps fully, popped the speed brakes, banked her to more than 50 -60 degrees, and headed down at about 3000' per minute.  The forward speed never built up, and flying a seriers of egg shapped turns i emerged out of the clouds (and snow) at about 3000' AGL, right above Palm Spings. The descent took more than 8 minutes - plenty of time to worry. The tower had also cleared the area, and on my last set of turns I lined up with the into-wind runway and landed without further incident. Neither LA Center or anyone at the FAA wanted any paperwork.  The LA Center controller (when I called her from the ground) said "We did our job, You did your job. Good for us both - glad it worked out OK". By the way, once I rolled the airplane to an FBO repair center, I found out it was not a turbo failure. I had partial failures of both my electric boost pump and engine driven pump - highly unusual. 

[carusoam]

 

First - smoke in the cabin in a C152.  First flight after maintenance. Whatever they used to clean the engine bay that day penetrated the air/heating system and was fogging the cabin...

What I learned... Cessna trainers don't go fast enough.  I wanted to be on the ground faster than it wanted to get me there.

 

Second - partial power loss on T/O in an M20C.  First few hours of my Mooney experience, cross country flight to Salisbury, MD.  Exhaust valve stuck in my new to me M20C. Flight instructor is now an expert in making proper aviation decisions.  Lowered the nose, raised the gear, maintained airspeed communicated with the tower, landed on the next available cross runway while reviewing procedures with his student.  Student got to operate the landing gear.

What I learned... O-360 with heavy vibration, and lack of power is still able to maintain a few hundred feet of altitude.  Reason to not let an M20C sit outside unused, and uncared for for a couple of years. Low cost pre-purchase inspections may not reveal everything.  Pull a jug, see exhaust valve, look for rust....

 

Third???  As long as I plan for the worst, it will probably never....it's best to just be ready...

 

Six cylinders are better than four on T/O....

More HP is better than less...

Cruise at high altitudes, you may need it...

Make friends everywhere you go. You may need their help sooner than you expect...

have your E-procedures memorized...

Fire extinguisher....check.

best regards,

 

-a-

Dick reminded me of one I didn't consider. ASI on a C152 trainer failed...

I have learned to always watch that instrument prior to leaving the ground with the Mooney.  Apparently me and the instructor didn't look that day. Something got stuck deep inside pitot tube according to the maint. mechanic.

[richardheitzman]

I was a fresh pilot with about 100 hours, and working as a A&P at a repair station in Georgetown Tx many years ago, and in exchange for "free flight time" I offered to rebuild a Cessna 152 engine for the company airplane on my own time. I tore it down, put it back together, and did the break in flight. I took off and climbed to about 5 thousand and cruised over to the lake to make big circles in the sky. I was getting bored with turning gas into noise when the engine decided to go "hiccup" and shut down. I put the aircraft into best glide and turned back to the airport, and tried to restart the engine with no luck. So having plenty of altitude I didnt get too nervous, I called the tower, declared the emergency, and they cleared me in for a straight approach. I had to lose a lot of altitude but I did some split S turns and once over the runway slipped it in and had enough energy to coast off the main onto the taxiway and half way to the hanger.

Reason was TWO broke carb bolts and the carb hung down off the bottom of the engine and so no gas for engine. We determined that the bolts had corroded from inside / out and when I torqued the nuts, they probably cracked and then let go.

 

[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.      Previously posted

[WardHolbrook]

I guess that I've had my share of experiences over the past 46 years (15,000 hours) that I've held a pilot's license:

1.   Engine failures in a Mooney M20C, a Cessna 411, a Cessna 172, and a couple in Gulfstream G100s. The engine failures in the Gulfstream G100s were both due to improper maintenance received at a factory service center. They were the typical "non-events" though, because of the training that we receive. The engine failure in the Mooney was also not a big deal. I was as LAS and the mid-time engine swallowed a valve shortly after liftoff from RW 19 (just a single runway back then).  I simply told the tower that we had lost the engine and I made a 90 left turn and landed on RW 7. No harm no foul.

 The engine failure in the Cessna 411 was a bit more interesting. I flew for a company in Las Vegas that used them to give air tours of the Grand Canyon. The company had just hung a factory remanufactured engine on it, in fact, it had just been returned to service and it was the first revenue flight. I had taken a full load of passengers from LAS to the Grand Canyon and was waiting around for the ground portion of their tour to finish up when our dispatcher called me on the phone to tell me that they wanted me to dead-head back to Las Vegas and pick up another group of passengers. Long story short, just after I had made my crosswind turn that factory reman engine just quit. Period. It was a warm summer day (Read: Very high density altitude.) at GCN and the 411 wasn't known for its single-engine performance or manners.  I consider it one of those days when the angels were looking after me - the altitude that I had when the engine quit (400' to 500') was the altitude I had when I turned final. That airplane wasn't able to climb. To this day, I think that it would have been a very different outcome if those passengers that I had left behind would have been on board. 

There was another interesting side to that experience. When the engine quit, I went through the engine out drill and feathered the engine then I turned back to the airport and entered downwind. I called the tower and had no response. I tried two or three more times, again no response. I was getting a little miffed, when the tower controller called back and asked me to "say again". I told him that I had lost and engine and that I was declaring an emergency and returning to the airport. He told me that I was #3 emergency, following a Nevada Airlines DC-3 with an engine failure and a Scenic Airlines C-402 with an engine fire and to continue. (The Scenic 402 has the Allison turboprop conversion.) He had been on the phone talking with the center when I called. We were all basically converging on the airport at the same time. The Scenic 402 got to the airport first. I told the tower that if he couldn't clear the runway in time, I would offset and land on the parallel taxi-way. (GCN just has the one runway and we occasionally used the taxiway when they did runway maintenance.) The 402 got down and cleared and I was able to land just as he cleared the runway. Just as I cleared the runway, the DC-3 came straight in, opposite direction, and landed. Oh well, fortunately, days like that are hopefully just once in a career events.

The engine failure in the 172 was also quite interesting.  It was caused by a magneto switch failure – the switch failed internally and killed the engine resulting in an off-field landing on an island.

2.  The Learjet precautionary landing that I mentioned in an earlier post on another thread was caused by contaminated fuel freezing a transfer valve closed and preventing us from accessing the fuel in the fuselage tank. The interesting thing about this incident was that the FBO where we purchased fuel was under some “financial stress” and the owner figured out that he could pump a few hundred extra gallons out of his underground fuel tanks if he lowered the standpipe in the tanks a few inches. That he did and we and some poor guy in a Cheyenne were the recipients of that fuel. The Cheyenne flamed out an engine and barely made it to an airport on the one that was running. Luckily for us, most of the fuel we bought from him was in the fuselage tank which had the jammed transfer valve.  We ended up landing in Denver and had to wait until everything thawed out. We removed over 8 gallons of water from our fuel system.  Like I said, don’t be in a big hurry to depart after fueling your airplane. Wait 20 minutes or so then sump the tanks – unless you’re absolutely positive that the line guys have been doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

3.  A jammed elevator in a Stinson 108-3. That one was easy, just did a wheel landing using the elevator trim. 

4.  Several years ago in an ultra-light (My last UL flight, by the way.) the composite propeller shed a blade and the resulting vibration ripped the engine from the mounts. The UL had amphibious floats. I was going for a corn field and the float braces got tangled up with the corn stalks as I was flaring to land. It rolled the whole thing up in a big ball - the ultra-light, me and a bunch of corn. I wasn't hurt, but like I said it was my last UL flight.

It is not my intention to come across as "my stories are scarier than your stories", but rather I want to make some points. So as to leave no doubt about the points that I want to convey, let me make some One of my aviation mentors, a retired Delta captain, told me early on in my career that some of the most dangerous flying you'll ever do is picking up brand-new airplanes from the factory and flying the initial flights as aircraft come out of maintenance. He said that when it came to new airplanes and initial flights after maintenance - it's not a matter of if you're going to have a problem, but rather when. You guys can take this as gospel; this airline captain knew what he was talking about. He was on the airline's new aircraft acceptance team and had the opportunity of making many acceptance flights when the airline took delivery of new aircraft. He also flew many of the post-maintenance test flights. Of my five "total" engine failures (and a couple of other "partial" power loss situations) all but one - the Mooney M20C - involved either new aircraft, initial flights on factory remanufactured engines, or service center maintenance screw-ups.

I guess the point that I'm trying to get across here is to not let yourself become complacent. After all, you can't have serious problems with new airplanes, new engines, or with airplanes that are just out of an inspection right? Yeah, right.

What have I learned from all of this? Many different things, but one thing that you guys that are flying complex piston engine aircraft need to understand is never be in too big of a hurry to make the initial power reduction after takeoff. Wait until you’re at an altitude where you have some options available to you if (when) the engine quits. My personal rule is to never reduce power until I am at an altitude and position where the loss of an engine would be manageable. Also, in a single-engine airplane, never retract the landing gear as long as you have usable runway ahead of you. I can't tell you how many times I've seen "hot shot" pilots break ground and immediately suck up the gear and make the initial power reduction. Stupid, very stupid.

Another lesson that I have learned is the value of proper training – both initial and recurrent. My experience with the vacuum pump failure in hard IFR conditions a big eye opener for me. I firmly believe that it was not only the initial training that I received, but also the recurrent training that I have always taken advantage of that kept me from making the headlines. At the time, I was instructing on a part-time basis. My full-time job was as an air ambulance pilot flying MU-2's, Citations, Cheyennes, and Conquest II's (I held simultaneous 135 letters in all four aircraft.) Our chief pilot was a stickler for training and we had to demonstrate hand-flown ILS approaches to touchdown (impact?) every 6-months. The discipline and skill that he forced us to obtain to fly the hospital aircraft has been put to good use on more than one occasion over the years. 

[John Pleisse]

Not proud of this...it is in the "bonehead" column and everything turned out OK. I was transitioning from the Skyhawk to the 201 (1997). I ran the checklist and switched the fuel selector as my mooney checklist item to the Skyhawk position.  The engine stopped. Instead of "fullest-left" I moved the fuel selector to the off position. About three seconds later, the engine stopped. I was abeam the numbers downwind to land. I declared, cut in front of downwind and base traffic and made it in uneventfully.

Emergency on-airport........and grandiose pilot error.

[lahso]

I'm really fortunate in that I've only had two precautionary landings at airports, and no declared emergencies.

1. Alternator failure in IMC, CAP C182. Safely returned to the departing airport.

2. Checking a pilot out in a Flight Design CT, and engine instruments went from upper green arc to redline shortly after establishing cruise climb. Safely returned to the departing airport.

[Immelman]

1. Had a structural 'issue' on the jury strut of a rental Citabria I was flying long ago (Ward, this was not U.B'.s)... the issue was a failure of the 'welded bolt' contraption that held it to the main strut. Losing the jury strut was no big deal, but after it broke, the main (the important) strut then developed a significant vibration, as in you could see the thing was vibrating a few inches on either side of neutral like a rope, but fast enough to be a blur. Fortunately I was able to fix the vibration using a different power/airspeed. I believe the jury strut broke because the poorly-rigged airplane wanted to vibrate.... Anyway, the choices were: 1. Land in Yosemite valley, or 2. chance 50 miles of flight to the nearest VFR airport (VFR airplane/no gyros, and fog obscured the nearby airports in the foothills). I elected to fly the 50 miles as I was able to get the vibration under control. There *is* a meadow in Yosemite valley the airplane cold probably be stuffed into, but it would have been iffy, and would likely have been substantially damaged. Oh yeah, my wife was in the back seat. That shook her up.

2. Lost one of the four cylinders in my M20E due to clogged injector. I had bought the airplane and this was maybe my 3rd flight in it. Fortunately I was over low terrain and had power to maintain altitude, so I looked for a place to land, turned back, ran through the troubleshooting items, and then the engine came back to normal life. As part of the maintenace in buying the airplane, I had new fuel hoses installed. One of the hoses was the last hose between fuel servo & injection distribution spider. This hose comes in line after all the fuel screens....

3. Lost a bit of power in a rental 172 shortly after takeoff.... immediately after engine work (you don't say). It still climbed, just not like it should given the load and density altitude. Told the folks in the pattern my predicament and came back around and landed.

Recently, lost alternator while instructing on an intro flght. "No big deal sir, aircraft are designed to run without electrical power". Day VFR so shed the load and saved the radio until we returned to land. Customer went away happy.

One thing I got out of these events for instructing is to give students partial power failures, and maybe a slight power reduction that gets worse over time. Not all engine problems lead to a total power loss, or are really abrupt. This way we discuss troubleshooting and deciding whether to continue along to an airpor or put it down somewhere off-field.

[carusoam]

DP is posted below...

[carusoam]

John, N4352H.

Good reminder to initial M20 pilots...

The center position for fuel tanks is "off" not "both".  I found this out in my first taxi prior to take-off.  Embarrassed at the time, but un injured. A decade later, i see this is good advice for anyone transitioning from high wing to low wing.

There is no "both" in a mooney...

Best regards,

-a-

[xftrplt]

[mulro767]

Almost 15,000 hours and all of my emergencies were in multi-engine airplanes with lots of time and gas to think and plan.  They were very minor emergencies. That's why every time I line up on the runway and advance the throttle on my Mooney, I say to myself, "I'm due!"

On a similar subject I saw Captain Al Haynes of United Flight 232 give a speech at UND many years ago.  He had over 25,000 hours including two tours over Vietnam in an F-4.  Sioux City was his first actual engine failure.  One of the heroes of that flight, Captain Denny Fitch, passed away last week.

[rob]

I had a mag failure on takeoff. Twice. Both times, the runup did not catch it, including (on the second time) a runup to full throttle.  Returned to land immediately. 

[bnicolette]

I made one precautionary landing in my Mooney not long after I purchased it.  Was commuting to work (Wilmington, DE) from Latrobe, PA.  I was VMC on an IFR about 15 miles west of Harrisburg.  I was at altitude in cruise on a beautiful smooth sun just coming up morning.  Fat/Dumb/Happy  when my engine "coughed".  It was almost instantaneous, meaning as fast as it lost a bit of power, it gained it right back.  I immediately asked New York center for the closest airport which was Carlisle but I wasn't sure what maintenance was available there and Harrisburgh was only a couple miles further.  Everything was indicating normally so I opted to go to Harrisburg as I knew they had maintenance there.  Landed uneventfully and taxied right to the maintenance facility.  When they removed the cowl and inspected everything, they found that number 1 intake was shakeable in their hands and one nut had come completely off one of the studs.  That was the extent of my "high pucker factor" in single engine airplanes.  However, I now check all the torques at every oil change and sometimes in between.

[jetdriven]

Brett, torque seal is your friend, especially on that magneto mounting nut and stud.

[Gone]

Big Bang

A piece of my spinner made an unauthorised departure from the aircraft.  It scraped some paint off the front of the cowl and made one @$##@ of a noise doing so.

This occured within three minutes of rotation on takeoff. I did not know about the spinner piece and had no idea what had caused the noise I treated the incident as a reason for setting up for a precautionary. We had three on board, myself, my brother in law and his father in law.

I immediately turned back to the airport, called the PAN, PAN, told them what I had witnessed (heard) and got back to concentrating on the aircraft.  I started checking gauges for a clue of a problem because that sort of noise cannot be good and something may be giving me an indication to look for.  If I needed to shut down the engine, that was the time to make that decision.

There was no smoke or oil and the engine appeared to be running smooth. One down.  

ATC asked if I needed assistance.  I told them that there was no reason to declare an emergency now but I would appreciate priority in the pattern.  They cleared the way.  Two down.

Briefed the two pax as per the checklist.  This was not an off-airport landing so some items were not implemented (cracking the door on final).  Three down.

Landed without incident.  Four down.

When we got out of the aircraft, I was missing about one sixth of the circumference of the spinner.

Whew!!!!! 

 

[BorealOne]

2x precautionary landings - 

1) An alt failure in a dodgy rented C172 in Australia. Departed Jabiru, Northern Territory w/ three on board outbound for a remote station. Alt failed about 30 min into flight, losing comms, flaps, and nav. Deadreckoned back to Jabiru and landed on busy uncontrolled strip after a few attempts to get the attention of departing aircraft who didn't appear to be up on NORDO procedures.

2) A throttle cable failure in Lutsel K'e, Northwest Territories, Canada in my Mooney. I was on approach to a 3000' gravel strip between lake and trees, and twisting back on the vernier control knob, when it came off in my hand. Power was about 30% - not useful for much - so I pushed the knob back into the firewall and got 100% - and it stayed there. Me and my 4 y/o co-pilot did a few laps of the tiny community while we pondered options. The airport operator was on lunch, no other planes were on frequency, and we were too low to reach Arctic Radio. I recall my main concern was advising the young lad's mother of our predicament. We ultimately decided our best option for a precautionary was Yellowknife, a larger centre with 7500' runways, fire trucks and repair facilities. We declared an emergency beforing doing an uneventful power-off landing there. Our little adventure made the local papers for 3 days running.

 

[Chessieretriever]

As a student pilot on my first cross country trip in our old 172 back in the day I lost a valve in #3 cylinder. The vibration was bad (valve head now part of the reciprocating mass of the piston in the dead cylinder). Declared emergency, went for closest airport (1800 ft grass strip about 10 miles away) and realized that I was able to maintain level flight and then choose a Class C airport about 15 miles for my landing. They cleared the traffic for me and I landed uneventfully flanked by fire trucks and law enforcement vehicles.

[DaV8or]

Totally boring precautionary landings-

2 alternators (1-C152 1- Mooney) , 1 oil filler door open (Arrow), 1 annoying pax door open (Arrow).

With all the stories above mine from such a small cross section of the aviation community, I can't believe we tell people that flying piston airplanes is safe with a straight face.

[John Pleisse]

Quote: carusoam

John, N4352H.

Good reminder to initial M20 pilots...

The center position for fuel tanks is "off" not "both".  I found this out in my first taxi prior to take-off.  Embarrassed at the time, but un injured. A decade later, i see this is good advice for anyone transitioning from high wing to low wing.

There is no "both" in a mooney...

Best regards,

-a-

[Bennett]

Forgot three other incidents. In one case, in retrospect, I should have declared an emergecy, but didn't, which proved to be stupid.  Once again I was on one of my San Carlos, CA to Florida flights (and then on to the British West Indies), flying my M20K 261 conversion, in the flight levels (FL230). I was over Missouri working futhrer and further North to avoid a huge buildup of thunderstorms.  I was at least 25 miles from the Northern end of the line when I took a clear air lightning strike. Huge flash in the cockpit, and the autopilot commanded full down (I described this in another thread about autopilots), all the instruments went weird (the electrical bus simply melted, as we learned later), and I fought the airplane to get level and out of a dive. Fortunately it was clear below and above where I was, and I didn't tell ATC of the problem. I just requested a descent to below 18,000' and cancelled IFR.  Airspeed, Altimeter, and VSI were of course all working, so I just flew her like a C150 and landed at as soon as I could. Unfortunately, when I had the runaway autopilot servo, I dropped aboiut 350 to 400 feet, and the ATC "Snitch" went off.  Several weeks later I was contacted by the FAA, who wanted me to voluntarily agree to a 30 day suspension for an altitude deviation while on an IFR flight plan.  No way! I fought the FAA, and to make the story short, 13 months later, and a whole buch of money beyond the AOPA legal expense limit, I had my hearing (in Florida) and actually won, and had a formal apology and clearing of my record.  Had I declared an emergency, this whole FAA mess would not have happened.  At the time I was afraid to declare an emergency for fear of the wrath of the FAA. Better to declare an emergeny, and stay in the ATC system until landing.

The second incident could have been horrible, but I was very lucky that day.  The airplane was the same M20K 261 conversion, and I was taking off from Little River, CA. This is fortunately a 5200' long uncontrolled runway. The wind was straight down the runway, and moderate, so I prepared for a normal takeoff with partial flaps and full power. The setup on this engine was such that I could pull an extra 2" of MP (for "emergencies").  As I rolled down the runway I realized I was pulling too high a MP for a normal takeoff from a long runway. I had a vernier throttle, and as I attempted to dial it back (I was about ten feet in the air, about 1500' down the runway), the throttle knob came off in my hand, leaving the throttle wide open. ##@#!#! Now what?  The gear was still down as I do not pick up the gear until I am clear of the runway, so I popped the speed brakes, dumped full flaps, cut the mixture, and put the airplane down hard. Not pretty, but I stopped at the very end of the concrete with the nosewheel in the dirt.  No damage, but I did have to leave the airplane for a week or so to find a mechanic to come out and replace the throttle cable.  It had broken off at the weld between the cable end and the knob shaft.  

One last precationary potential emergency landing to relate happened just after an annual. Digression: I hate annuals as too many incidents have happened to me on the first flight after an annual - in all sorts of aircraft, and at many different FBOs, including some famous ones. This time I took off normally, set up a climb, and upon reaching my selected altitude, I tried to trim the airplane. No dice! The airplane was stuck in a climb configuration. Later we found that a flashlight left in the tailcone (yes, it was the same M20K) had jammed somehow in the trim system, and I could not override it manually with the trim wheel, or with the electrical trim switch. Sounds simple. Reduce power so that the airplane stays level, and reduce power further to descend. Harder to do in actual situations.  Anyway, I played around for a while to learn what settings worked best and flew back to the airsrip at the FBO who did the annual.  Worked out OK - the climb trim was perfect for the landing. Took me a bit of time not to take it out on the shop. But, I now insist that any facility who works on my airplane, test flys it before I will accept the work, and I now operate the trim switch on the yoke to make sure that trim works as part of my pre-flight cockpit checks.

[David Mazer]

Quote: DaV8or

With all the stories above mine from such a small cross section of the aviation community, I can't believe we tell people that flying piston airplanes is safe with a straight face.