Emergency Landing-Engine DEAD

Ol Shy & Bashful wrote:
So what do you do? Over the weekend, a Bonanza driver was faced with
this issue and had a 2000' grass strip to land on. He and his
passengers were injured and the airplane was an apparent writeoff.
I've been on that strip many many times but intentionally. Well, I've
been on many such strips worldwide.
So, what do you do?


I must be missing a link to more info on this incident. Just from what I
see in your post, I would land on the airstrip if within gliding
distance. (2000 ft is enough.) Otherwise, look for another spot to land
on. What am I missing?

Nomen Nescio wrote:
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From: Dudley Henriques

I hate to second guess another pilot who was there and actually had the
accident, but depending on where he was when he lost the engine, my
initial question would be why he crashed at all having a 2000 foot grass
strip to land on. I'm puzzled. If he had any time at all to plan a dead
engine approach into such a strip, he should have made it in there with
no issues at all with a Bo.

Well, throwing another WAG into the mix..............
The guy may have been nervous about a 2000' grass strip and just
flown the approach as a poor short/soft field landing. I'm amazed, nowadays,
at the number of pilots who have never landed on a grass strip.
He may have tried waaaay to hard to put it down on the end of the strip...and
came up short.

As to "Ol Shy & Bashful"'s question "So, what do you do?".
I'd probably approach a bit high and a bit hot. Counting on a slip to square
things up in the last few seconds. Figuring that if I REALLY blew it, it's better
to go off the far end at 20 kts, than land short at 90 kts.

This, of course, assumes that the plane had enough energy to give the
pilot some options.

The thing about forced landings is that no two of them are exactly
alike. It's the total acceptance of this single fact that forms the
basis for the way all good instructors teach pilots to think about these
situations. In other words, what you could and should have done 5
seconds ago is now changed from that to what you should be doing NOW,
based on the extremely dynamic situation in play as an emergency takes
place involving a forced landing with an aircraft moving through threee
dimensional space.

In order to evaluate post incident what a pilot could have or should
have done in a given accident, one literally has to project the flight
path backwards from the impact scene to the point in space where the
emergency occurred; then data point from there two decision paths to the
impact point; the first path the decisions made vs the second decision
path; the decisions possible for the existing conditions.

(For example; 90 kts and short immediately presents the question; why short?

This is an extremely difficult process as one can see :-), and is the
reason why it's so hard to come to any viable conclusions in these
discussions.

Your general "plan" for a forced landing set up sounds good to me.


--
Dudley Henriques

On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:50:16 -0700 (PDT), "Ol Shy & Bashful"
wrote:

On Jun 17, 10:16*pm, Big John wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:44:52 -0700 (PDT), "Ol Shy & Bashful"

wrote:
So what do you do? Over the weekend, a Bonanza driver was faced with
this issue and had a 2000' grass strip to land on. He and his
passengers were injured and the airplane was an apparent writeoff.
I've been on that strip many many times but intentionally. Well, I've
been on many such strips worldwide.
So, what do you do?

WAG

May have stretched the glide to make field and bird stalled over end
of R/W with wing dropping and hitting the ground first.

Sounds like he did a good job to me from the data we know now.

Big John

Big John
I flew over the strip this morning and the airplane is still in place
on the north end of the runway and really close to the approach end of
the runway. There are trees and swamp on the north end, and I-65 at
the southwest end with swamp all around the area. All I saw were pics
of the a/c in the news, read the different reports, and saw the actual
accident site. The runway is well maintained, about 200' wideX2000'.
At least no one was killed or seriously injured. The Bo looked pretty
rough though.
I'm just guessing that he had a fairly steep approach angle with a
high sink rate to hit and stop where he did. It was well short of my
normal touchdown zone on that strip and I've been in there many many
times with students.
As any experienced pilot knows......"you had to have been there to
know what really happened or how......"
Best Regards
Ol S&B

he did the very best he could at the time.
we can only hope that we do as well or better if it happens to us.
Stealth Pilot

On Jun 18, 8:44*am, "Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote:
So what do you do? Over the weekend, a Bonanza driver was faced with
this issue and had a 2000' grass strip to land on. He and his
passengers were injured and the airplane was an apparent writeoff.
I've been on that strip many many times but intentionally. Well, I've
been on many such strips worldwide.
So, what do you do?

Well this is what I was trained to do. It works for me in practice ,
I just hope I have the presence of mind to do it when I really have
to.

turn excess speed into altitude and trim for best glide speed
try carby heat and mixture rich.
check wind direction
select landing spot
If height allows I aim for 2500 ft agl high point key at upwind end
of landing spot.
then aim for 1500 ft agl abeam landing pt on downwind.
if time permits I will try to get the engine restarted
check fuel and change tank if applicable
try left and right magnetos
try throttle at different positions
make a mayday call
give a passenger briefing
aim 1/3 into the field or runway
( better to be long than short)
turn base at 1000 ft agl
delay flaps until sure I am going to make it.
if still too high I will try slipping in
mixture idle cut off
magnetos off
fuel off
master switch off

Of course this all depends on altitude at which engine failure
occurs , if I dont have time I will ignore restart of engine, I will
do the mayday call and pax brief if I have time, but nothing will
take precedence over getting the airplane down safely.
I WILL NOT TRY TO STRETCH THE GLIDE. I would also prefer a field I
know I can make rather than an airfield I may be able to make.

Terry
PPL Downunder

On Jun 17, 11:50*pm, "Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote:
As any experienced pilot knows......"you had to have been there to
know what really happened or how......"

Yes. The NTSB report won't tell us much. But here's a thought...

I think the pilot did either a very good job - or a very poor one -
but we have no way to know. Given the area around the airport, there
really wasn't any place else to land North of the field - and that's
where he came in.

Sometimes stretching the glide is the way to go. Many years ago, a
friend and former student of mine was flying a Kolb Twinstar - and the
Rotax quit at about 200 AGL on the climbout. His options for a
straight-ahead landing was basically trees. So he turned back.

Now the thing about the Kolb is that the climb speed is way higher
than the stall speed (much bigger difference than in the garden-
variety spam cans) so he had some speed he could bleed as well as
altitude. Also, he was a glider pilot, so he knew all about banking
45 degrees at 150 ft. Well, he pulled it off - sort of. He put it
back on the field, but he ran out of energy in the last bit of the
flare. Bent some tubing, but walked away. I suspect it would have
been much worse had he landed straight ahead into the trees. Really,
he did a great job.

On the other hand, I knew another pilot who was flying jumpers in a
C182 and ran out of gas on final. He could have just put it down on
the open grass short of the runway and done fine, but he stretched the
glide to the runway. Same basic result - ran out of speed and
destroyed the airplane but walked away. He was a ****up. Flies for
Southwest now.

Anyway, my point is that there are situations where getting the plane
to the runway with not quite enough energy to flare is the best you
can do - and other situations where it's gross incompetence. Not much
in the middle though.

The Bo is not normally landed power off (I know you know this - this
is more for the benefit of those lurking). In fact, if I were putting
one into that strip, I would likely be coming down at about 80 mph
with a lot of power. Best glide, if I remember right, is about 30 mph
more than that. So there are two possible explanations. Maybe the
pilot screwed up - slowed down too much and sank out. Or maybe he was
coming in clean at 110 mph, saw that he was not making the field, and
effectively started his flare at a few hundred feet, bleeding energy
to stretch the glide, dropping flaps and gear at the last second, and
just misjudged it by that much.

We'll never know.

Michael

In article
,
"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote:

On Jun 17, 10:16*pm, Big John wrote:
On Tue, 17 Jun 2008 15:44:52 -0700 (PDT), "Ol Shy & Bashful"

wrote:
So what do you do? Over the weekend, a Bonanza driver was faced with
this issue and had a 2000' grass strip to land on. He and his
passengers were injured and the airplane was an apparent writeoff.
I've been on that strip many many times but intentionally. Well, I've
been on many such strips worldwide.
So, what do you do?

WAG

Most of the Bo (and other higher-performance singles) never practice
engine-out emergencies. They also tend to fly approach at far too-high
airspeed.

I usually approach and land power-off, generally from an overhead
approach.

Proper technique:


1. Establish best L/D glide speed.

2. Keep it clean (no gear or flaps) until you have the field made.

3. Fly to overhead the field (if possible).

4. Keep it close to the field.

5. See #2 above.

6. Modulate glide angle with gear and flaps.

7. 1.3 x stall speed is right for most certificated planes.

8. Land in a full-flare.

Don't worry about ground roll in grass. The taller the grass the shorter
the roll.

--
Remove _'s from email address to talk to me.

Vaughn Simon wrote:
"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in message
...
So, what do you do?

Slow it down to best glide and then do the very best you can from there. I
am also a glider pilot but if the noise suddenly stopped on my Cezzna I would be
in that situation for the very first time. I would hope I could do better, but
you won't get me to speak badly of someone who blew a dead stick approach to a
2000' runway. Hell, I have had to go around more than once after screwing up an
ordinary approach.

Vaughn



I have only had to ride a plane down once and was successful. Heck, it
was out in Western Kansas and all the wheat fields are very long
runways. But I have learned in practice to plan an little high and slip
the last part. I do not want to come up short.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: Dudley Henriques

I hate to second guess another pilot who was there and actually had the
accident, but depending on where he was when he lost the engine, my
initial question would be why he crashed at all having a 2000 foot grass
strip to land on. I'm puzzled. If he had any time at all to plan a dead
engine approach into such a strip, he should have made it in there with
no issues at all with a Bo.

Well, throwing another WAG into the mix..............
The guy may have been nervous about a 2000' grass strip and just
flown the approach as a poor short/soft field landing. I'm amazed,
nowadays,
at the number of pilots who have never landed on a grass strip.
He may have tried waaaay to hard to put it down on the end of the
strip...and
came up short.


Where I rent we have to sign a release saying that we will not land on any
grass strips, the only time I even landed on a grass strip was in a
neighbors Decathlon when I was just a kid.

Darkwing wrote:
"Nomen Nescio" wrote in message
...
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----

From: Dudley Henriques

I hate to second guess another pilot who was there and actually had the
accident, but depending on where he was when he lost the engine, my
initial question would be why he crashed at all having a 2000 foot grass
strip to land on. I'm puzzled. If he had any time at all to plan a dead
engine approach into such a strip, he should have made it in there with
no issues at all with a Bo.
Well, throwing another WAG into the mix..............
The guy may have been nervous about a 2000' grass strip and just
flown the approach as a poor short/soft field landing. I'm amazed,
nowadays,
at the number of pilots who have never landed on a grass strip.
He may have tried waaaay to hard to put it down on the end of the
strip...and
came up short.


Where I rent we have to sign a release saying that we will not land on any
grass strips, the only time I even landed on a grass strip was in a
neighbors Decathlon when I was just a kid.



What a shame. They can be a lot of fun.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

"Ross" wrote in message
...
Vaughn Simon wrote:
"Ol Shy & Bashful" wrote in message
...
So, what do you do?

Slow it down to best glide and then do the very best you can from
there. I am also a glider pilot but if the noise suddenly stopped on my
Cezzna I would be in that situation for the very first time. I would
hope I could do better, but you won't get me to speak badly of someone
who blew a dead stick approach to a 2000' runway. Hell, I have had to go
around more than once after screwing up an ordinary approach.

Vaughn

I have only had to ride a plane down once and was successful. Heck, it was
out in Western Kansas and all the wheat fields are very long runways. But
I have learned in practice to plan an little high and slip the last part.
I do not want to come up short.

--

Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP
KSWI

Just like landing the shuttle! g