Bad outcome to an engine failure...

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TheGreenAnger
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Bad outcome to an engine failure...

#1 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Nov 02, 2022 9:34 am



What strikes me is how helpful ATC were. Should the pilot have decided to make an early precautionary off field landing? Easy to ask, difficult in extremis to make the right decision.

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Re: Bad outcome to an engine failure...

#2 Post by Ex-Ascot » Wed Nov 02, 2022 10:08 am

Take your point TGA but if you still have power and a runway in sight, it is tempting to go for it. Jolly unlucky about the terrain he had when it all went quiet. Fortunate that he didn't take out folk on the ground. Yes, ATC were excellent.
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Re: Bad outcome to an engine failure...

#3 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Nov 02, 2022 12:07 pm

He broke the basic rule of not flying over built-up areas at a height unable to glide clear.
Another problem is that his nearest airfield at the point the video starts is directly behind him - out of sight, out of mind.
Nor is he asking himself every couple of minutes, in normal flight - What if my engine fails now?
My GPS, even in 1994, had a 10 Nearest Airfields button.
Any of these points would have led to a better ending.

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Re: Bad outcome to an engine failure...

#4 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Nov 02, 2022 12:52 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Wed Nov 02, 2022 12:07 pm
He broke the basic rule of not flying over built-up areas at a height unable to glide clear.
Another problem is that his nearest airfield at the point the video starts is directly behind him - out of sight, out of mind.
Nor is he asking himself every couple of minutes, in normal flight - What if my engine fails now?
My GPS, even in 1994, had a 10 Nearest Airfields button.
Any of these points would have led to a better ending.
It seems he had elected to land on the runway that the air traffic controller had given him vectors to. I imagine, as EX-Ascot pointed out, that he was heading towards runway 02 and had commenced his descent and was "Jolly unlucky about the terrain he had when it all went quiet."

I agree, one can never have too many landing places, that is until it all goes tits up and you suddenly have to choose one of them at low level, commence your descent and have the fan stop, only to find that none of your choices are now reachable.

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Re: Bad outcome to an engine failure...

#5 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Nov 02, 2022 1:01 pm

With a dodgy single engine, maintain all the power you have available until you intersect a glide approach path, when you reduce power to idle. It's very basic. I've had to do it twice.

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Re: Bad outcome to an engine failure...

#6 Post by TheGreenAnger » Wed Nov 02, 2022 1:43 pm

Fox3WheresMyBanana wrote:
Wed Nov 02, 2022 1:01 pm
With a dodgy single engine, maintain all the power you have available until you intersect a glide approach path, when you reduce power to idle. It's very basic. I've had to do it twice.
Indeed, it is, but en route to that glideslope intercept being "unavoidably in the shaded area of the avoid curb" (to quote the heli fellows here) is a bad place to be, particularly when the surface is below is gnarly. I guess this fellow was doing exactly as you suggest when his engine finally died on him. On a normal fixed wing approach to one of the runways at my home base there is a small part of the approach that would result in a descent into pylons and high-tension wires if the engine was to quit on one at the wrong moment. A turn either way from the wires would put one in woods, or equally as bad, a motorway. There are times when a total engine failure is going to settle one's hash whatever the perfection of one's strategy or approach.
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Re: Bad outcome to an engine failure...

#7 Post by Fox3WheresMyBanana » Wed Nov 02, 2022 2:26 pm

I agree, but I don't think any of that applies in this case.
Firstly, one would not use a normal approach if the engine is already known to be rough running.
Secondly, he's headed to the wrong airport, and then also by the wrong routing.
Best as I can tell, his best bet was John Tune airport, and from his initial position he should have routed slightly west of north, staying above the Harpeth river and the associated fields. He would have options all the way then.
As it was, ATC offered him the international airport, with wooded suburbs all the way.
I would wonder whether ATC consider routing for single engined aircraft. Offering him the International airport was the worst option.

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