"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
om...
| It was my impression that the pilot simply forgot to switch tanks, and
| flew one tank dry while he had 20 gallons in the other tank. However,
| what is the fuel burn rate in a Seneca II? Is 20 gallons worth 45mins?
|

It is a little more complex than that. Normally the Seneca burns fuel for
the left engine from the left tank and fuel from the right engine from the
right tank. It is possible to run out of fuel for one engine and not the
other. I don't remember which tank the aircraft heater draws fuel from, but
I think it is the left. There is a crossfeed valve that allows you to run
both engines from either tank. The engine failure checklist calls for
turning on this crossfeed valve, which he apparently did. However, the OP
could have opted to simply feather the stopped fan rather than attempt to
restart the engine while flying a tricky ILS approach where he was already
behind the airplane. The Seneca is easy to fly on one engine and continuing
the approach on one engine may well have well have been the better part of
valor. He would not have had the option of going around or making a missed
approach if anything went wrong, though, so he probably did the right thing
by restarting the engine.

The Seneca II burns between nine and twelve gallons per hour per engine in
normal use. The turboed version burns a little more. Nursing it a little
bit, he may have had over an hour of fuel left, especially since he was
descending anyway and had elected to keep his configuration clean.

Other things I think the pilot did right include turning on the autopilot
when he started getting a little vertigo, leaving gear and flaps up on the
descent (approaches in the Seneca usually are flown with one notch of flaps
and gear down), and declaring that he was low on fuel.