On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 00:06:41 -0800, A Lieberman
wrote:

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

The reportability criteria for aircraft accidents and incidents is
contained in NTSB Part 830. I didn't report my engine failure; no damage,
no injuries. I did have a thing or two to say to the FBO who sold me
contaminated fuel. :-)

And this did not show up on your preflight??? I don't know about
others, but I sump everytime I get topped off. Even on layover flights.

There was no water separation in the fuel when I checked the sumps. There
were tiny bubbles in the sample, but they looked like air. They did not
separate out from the fuel during the time I was sitting on the
ground...every sample came up with red fuel, and little tiny bubbles
scattered through it, neither rising nor falling.

I walked into the FBO with my sample and asked my CFI about it. He'd never
seen the phenomena before. Other pilots in the lounge looked at it, and
had never seen the effect. We'd had heavy rain the night before. I asked
the FBO manager whether that could be water in the fuel, and he insisted
that their fuel tanks' water detector would shut off the fuel if water was
in the gas

In any case, two airplanes had already filled at the same tanks that day
with no reported trouble. Everyone gave the fuel sample a clean bill of
health, including my CFI.

But...the FBO's fuel-tank caps were in shallow pits in the tarmac. The
heavy rain had filled the pits...and the caps had leaky gaskets and let the
water drain into the tank. The fuel-water separator had only partially
worked...I had noticed the fuel had dispensed slowly, but it hadn't shut it
off completely. What it *had* done was place the water in suspension in
the fuel...that's what the bubbles were. There wasn't any water in the
sumps, because it hadn't had a chance to separate yet.

I figure the vibration of the engine hastened the precipitation. About
five minutes after takeoff, the engine started getting rough. I firewalled
it to gain as much altitude as I could and headed towards a nearby airport.
the engine finally died completely about 3/4 mile out from the
airport...but by that time, I had about 1500 feet.

I had a choice between flying directly to the airport and landing downwind,
or trying to circle the field to land upwind. I elected to take the
downwind landing, but I had a ton of altitude to get rid of and a fairly
short distance to do it.

BTW, did I mention my airspeed indicator was ALSO inop...due to water in
the pitot line?

After I landed, I immediately checked the sumps. All I got was scummy pond
water. I pelted for the office to call the other airport's FBO and warn
them. Then I spent about 45 minutes draining water out of my tanks. After
the first five or ten sampler-loads, I started draining it directly into an
empty oil can. From the number of times I filled those quart cans, I
figure there was about two gallons of water in each of my 13-gallon tanks.

While I was doing this, a guy came over and asked what I was doing. I
filled a sampler and showed it to him. He said, "Yeah, I use auto fuel,
too." The sample mimicked the way 80-octane and auto fuel would mix and
turn clear.

The two airplanes that had filled before me? The first one to fill that
day had flown to another nearby airport. They got hold of him, and he
checked his tanks. He had just a cup of water in his fuel.

The one that filled up second? He had flown in, filled, and parked. They
got about six gallons of water out of his tanks.

Did I make a mistake? Yep. Had I crunched it, I would have added an "X"
to the "Improper Preflight" column in my accident database. The NTSB
probably would have castigated me for my decision to do the deadstick
landing downwind, too. As it is, it makes a good hangar story (and for
that matter, a good article in FLYING magazine...May 1987).

But I had luck on my side, that day. Proximity to an airport, and a bunch
of recent practice in the glide-path control techniques described in "Stick
and Rudder." Had that 1500 feet to kill in three-quarters of a mile. Full
flaps, nose well up with the stall horn nickering. Prop stopped almost
immediately. Didn't even have to slip.

I was lucky...but it did leave me with plenty of sympathy for those who
DON'T have my luck.

I simplify it, but I doubt the NTSB would say pilot error for landing in
a field in your example. If you have come across a report that
"exaggerated", I would love to see it. I think there is some
reasonability in their determinations.

After the hundreds of reports I read, they all start to blur together. I
do remember at least one where the investigator said something like "pilot
should have picked the next field over." I tend to remember the REALLY
memorable cases, like the Mooney that had its entire tail section fall off
on final due to dry rot (the pilot went ahead and landed it...no injuries)
or the toxicologic summary of what was in the pilot's blood and organs in
one particular accident (alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, prozac, a whole
pharmacopeia).

In the vast majority of cases, I see nothing in the described situation
that makes me argue when the NTSB attributes the accident to pilot error.
Of those 172 accidents in 2000, over 60% were due to the pilot incorrectly
controlling the aircraft or misjudging his flight path. That 60% doesn't
include an additional 5% that ran out of fuel, or the 2% that flew VFR into
IFR conditions, or several other causes that are related to bad judgment on
behalf of the PIC.

However, there's a danger in that. Years ago, I read a report that
revealed that 95% of the people surveyed considered themselves
above-average drivers. I don't doubt the numbers are similar for pilots.

Thus enters an insidious danger in "Pilot Error" accident reporting:
People tell themselves, "If the cause was pilot error, I don't have to
worry about it because I'm a better pilot than that guy was."

We tend to attribute those accidents to bad piloting skills or poor
decision making by some "lesser" pilot. "He should have known better."
"How can someone make such an idiotic mistake?" Tom Wolfe wrote about this
attitude in "The Right Stuff." And I think it's one we're still fighting
today.

Ron Wanttaja