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Has anyone had a complete engine failure ?


spokewrench

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Not an engine failure per se, but one day I had all the oil go overboard in my Encore so I killed the engine before it had a chance to kill itself. Fortunately I was at 17,500' on a beautiful, clear desert day, and within easy glide distance of 4 or 5 airports. Dead-sticked it into Palm Springs (KPSP) without incident. It's the only forced landing I've had in 28 years and 1,400 hours of flying.

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Here is the video from the engine out at my home field a few weeks ago.  I was not the pilot, but know the pilot and plane.    Very lucky no one was hurt seriously. 

 

 

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I asked the pilot I purchased my Mooney from if he had ever experienced an engine failure. He had over 35,000 hours of multi time and put at least 2000 on the tach on my Mooney, before mine he owned another Mooney. If I understood him correctly, he said he had never experienced an engine failure. 

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So, doing the math, that guy had 72,000 engine hours without a failure. I like the odds he had.

Do you know what type of engines he was using? If they were IO360s that would be a nice comforting piece of data. If they were turbines, then we should all move up the ladder.

My current concern is a single Continental IO550 that will go from break-in to beyond TBO, if things go my way.

Best regards,

-a-

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Just started training for engine failures and landing with no power, was wondering if any of you actually needed to perform a real engine failure ? Yesterday from my home airport: http://news.hjnews.com/allaccess/article_36b5a2b2-6d7c-11e2-bed9-0019bb2963f4.html
You had me! I thought your post was a direct answer to the OP's question whether anyone had an engine failure. I read your answer as (yes) Yesterday from my home airport. Glad they made it...
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  • 7 years later...

Some of these make mine seem like nothing.  Flying from Fort Worth, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Just passed Clovis, New Mexico at 10,000 feet, the oil pressure started to slowly drop, the CHT's started to slowly rise, so I immediately turned to Clovis.  Engine quit on final, able to land and coast off the runway.  Mechanic on the field pulled the oil filter and it was full of shiny bits of metal.  Engine decided it was hungry and ate a main bearing for lunch. :)

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Within the first three months of owning my airplane I had two complete power losses and a partial.   The first was either water, which I think is most likely, or the fuel servo starting to go, the second full power loss was the fuel servo finally giving up.   The partial, which was in between the other two, was a clogged injector.   I felt very lucky in each case that I had means to get it onto airport pavement.   By the third one I was seriously contemplating how long my luck was going to hold out and what diety I had pissed off that I was getting a failure a month.   The airplane has been solid since then, though, thank goodness.  

 

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About 75 hours after an engine change, fuel pressure line came loose at a bulkhead fitting.  Ran rough for about 30 seconds before the engine quit.  Glide from 9000 about 10 miles to an airport.  Runway was closed for repaving.  Landed anyway.

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Ugh this is a club we would not want to be in.  It is a club I am in.  I had a complete loss of power about 2 years ago after having owned this plane for about 10 years then, at 16,500 enroute. Happily a good and uneventful dead stick landing at an airport that was maybe 15 mi from the initial problem.  It was a turbo failure.

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“Right after liftoff the engine ran really loud and rough, lots of shaking, for about 2 minutes.  Then it quit completely for a few seconds, and then started up again.  It ran rough still, not as bad as before, for about another six minutes. Then it abruptly quit for good.”

”How fast were you going then?”

”Oh, about 17,000 mph.”

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4 hours ago, Greg Ellis said:

Some of these make mine seem like nothing.  Flying from Fort Worth, Texas to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  Just passed Clovis, New Mexico at 10,000 feet, the oil pressure started to slowly drop, the CHT's started to slowly rise, so I immediately turned to Clovis.  Engine quit on final, able to land and coast off the runway.  Mechanic on the field pulled the oil filter and it was full of shiny bits of metal.  Engine decided it was hungry and ate a main bearing for lunch. :)

Ah, but it was your superior airmanship and situational awareness (for lack of better description) that enabled you to see had a big problem BEFORE your engine gave up on you so that you were able to get it back on the ground before you totally lost engine power. Way to many of these failures are partially the fault of us pilots for missing the signs that we have a true emergency and taking necessary action before its too late. Of course we're not always fortunate enough to get warnings, but often we are. Good job! 

Edited by kortopates
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3 hours ago, Jerry 5TJ said:

“Right after liftoff the engine ran really loud and rough, lots of shaking, for about 2 minutes.  Then it quit completely for a few seconds, and then started up again.  It ran rough still, not as bad as before, for about another six minutes. Then it abruptly quit for good.”

”How fast were you going then?”

”Oh, about 17,000 mph.”

Apollo Saturn V?

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Blown jug at 9,000', oil coming up on windshield, and landed at a field squaking 7700 with less than 1/2 of a quart, IO360 Lycoming, she was hot, but still running.  Landed at a military base weeks after 9/11 happened.  They were very accommodating when saw the engine oil level and sweat on my forehead.  That was her last flight before a reman.  No full failure in years of happy flying.  

Edited by MooneyDriver1
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One where I did not recognise exactly when did engine stopped: I flew an old vintage that needs lot of carb heat and throttle awareness, I joined overhead and cut engine power to go down quickly, I noticed engine coughing as I did bring power slightly up to level on downwind but left it idle all the way, only after landing the propeller stopped, so I really did not recall when the engine did actually stopped :) 

I had a (stupid) fuel starvation in C172 while it was expected, it did come as surprise 30min earlier than I planned, but funny how I managed to claim some of that endurance back by regularly switching between empty fuel tanks without touching anything :lol: maybe only applies to high wings? any remaining fuel comes down to engine pipes if one give it some wiggle and time before switching fuel?

Hopefully nothing on the M20J, touching the wood and crossing fingers, one of my friends had a partial EFATO in his Mooney at 100ft, cause water in fuel that was not detected on pre-flight samples, if anyone wonders how to get out of the Mooney if the front door is locked, the baggage door can take 2m tall person ;) 

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As a student pilot on a dual night XC, cold night, little heat in trainer, we experienced complete loss of oil pressure, we diverted--at my insistence my CFI was busy trying to diagnose, so I spoke up, CRM.  We landed with power but when it was gonna quit was anyone's guess.  On the ground at KMMK we found oil all over the fuse and floor.  I did notice a slippery feeling on the bare aluminum floor, but my attention went to holy sH&% are we taking on ice, confirmed no icing anywhere, and wrote it off to cold floor (should have just taken out my flashlight to confirm or not.  Found a mechanic Russell who was working late (on a Mooney) at the filed he confirmed in a few minutes it was cracked seam in the oil cooler and there wasn't a drop on the dipstick.  So I asked Russell how long can a Lycoming run without oil he responded -----------"I don't know, you guys are the first to make it back."      

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C-150 carb ice on take off.  Complete failure.  Prop stopped just at touch down.  Barely made the last turn off at runway end without running off.

2nd was a student in his M20C.  Instead of pulling the flaps release knob pulled mixture to cutoff.  Btw, I was watching my student like a hawk and still didn't catch him in time.  Took less than a second to engine shutdown and then another second to regain power after I pushed both the mixture and yoke at the same time.  Fun times

William

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Is that a real question? Of course. Eventually you’ll have an engine failure. I’ve had a number but only 1 to the ground in the Mooney. 1,020 hours since factory new on my Lycoming and a bolt on the piston end cap backed off and threw the engine all to pieces. 
 

-Robert 

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1 hour ago, WilliamR said:

C-150 carb ice on take off.  Complete failure.  Prop stopped just at touch down.  Barely made the last turn off at runway end without running off.

 

I had an engine failure on take off due carb ice too. They say it isn’t supposed to happen but it happened to me in a j-3. Got into habit of taking off with carb heat. 
 

-Robert 

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Just one so far. On a 39 J3 carb heat and fuel shutoff are on the same side painted black. My front seater pulled the fuel valve instead of carb heat on base. We were strung out behind a c152. I Landed 300ft short of the runway. Dodged some wires on the way down. My fault! No fault of the airplanes. 

-Matt

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