What caused your engine-out(s)?

[CentralFLA]

Ok, let's hear what caused your engine out(s). You've got to be honest too. If it was lack of petroleum, say it. I'd like to know if there are a few chief culprits (bad fuel pump, debris in fuel, fouled plugs, etc.). We could all benefit from sharing this information. So, give us the scoop...what caused yours, how many have you had, how many hours were on your engine, and do you do anything different now to prevent another one?

[Teach]

I had an engine out on my very first flight. I had just purchased the unit and it came with a 447 that had just been rebuilt. The seller demonstrated/flew it for me and provided all of the paperwork on the engine work, too. The problem was, he says he didn't know that he was supposed to re-torque the head bolts after two hours of run time. (The mechanic later said that he was sure that he told the owner to do so.) Long story short, I was lined up for my landing when I lost one cylinder; I had to land in a bean field about 100' short of my intended landing site (a newly mown hay field). One of the pistons had a nice hole in the top of it, about the size of a dime. It sent aluminum throughout the entire engine. I decided to to go with the Rotax trade-in offer and installed a brand new engine. The mechanic did the labor for free; the previous owner said "sorry" and so my VISA said "cha-ching"!:(

I just tell myself that now I have a low-hour engine and that I know every bit of its history...and I installed a new EIS to monitor EGT and CHT readings so that it won't happen again! :D

Teach

[Joe Pires]

My first two were some unknown fuel problem. We replaced the fuel pump and it still happened. took apart the carbs found nothing and put them back together. 40 hours later it never recurred.

My most embarrasing was not having enough gas. I was told I had a 10 gallon fuel tank on my 97 buckeye dream machine. I in fact had an 8 gallon tank. I was one mile from the field, I announced my intention to land and it got very quiet. But good training has me always aware of my best and closest "impromptu landing site" (sounds better than emergency) So I put it down in the middle of a cow pasture.

[Incarcerated]

Yes! A thread requiring no political view point.

The first person who was ever a passenger with me was the AFI doing the check ride for my BFI. We, too, checked into a beanfield. 3203 FI Hirth. The automatic oil injector and tank had been removed previously so I pre-mix.

It seems that the computer plug, that had once monitored the automatic oil flow, was gathering moisture in the "hole" and indicating to the computer in charge of fuel management the fuel was uneeded. Although this was not the first time that it manifested itself, usually on crisp mornings when the dew point was close to the temprature, it was the first time it had happened airborne. 17 second flight; max altitude 120 feet on take-off.

Matt Dandar, Hirth rep for United States, Tiffin, Ohio, was extremely helpful. After diagnosing the problem on a wet, rainy morning, following my drive to his shop, he simply "plugged my hole"!:eek:

[CentralFLA]

Those were some good responses. Anyone else?

[Frank Smrdel]

I had one at about 100' right after doing a touch n go, during my training. It was a cold, foggy fall morning. I was just turning through 90 degrees away from the field when it happened. I turned it around and flared right before touchdown on the side of the runway, no harm done. My instructor was white as a ghost when he came running up to me. I got high praise for a great flared engine-out landing. I had major-rubber legs when I climbed out of the plane! "I guess I did the right thing", I remember telling him. We found a tablespoon or so of condensation pooled under the carb, on the engine plate. We think it was a case of carb ice. I had the engine checked out, and found nothing else wrong. It never happened again, however I have refused to fly on cold, foggy mornings since that time!
The engine's a 503, single carb.

[Dennis Garrett]

A few years ago when I first started, I ran out of gas, because I had my head up my U-know-what. I did realize it was low, and gained some altitude just in case, but it quit a mile from our field. Landing was un-eventful, but my wife was not happy about having to drop everything and bring me a can of gas out in a field. Then next time, I was over the field, and again getting low on fuel, but decided to keep climbing until it ran out and glide back in. I got to up 2,000' and it quit just like killing the mags. I kept flying and circling, and landed right next to my trailer, just where I started out earlier. Engine out practice is a good thing, so is altitude.

[Simon]

In early September this year, while we were on a camping trip in the Makgadikgadi depression in Northern Botswana, I took my PPC for a flight. The weather was not good during the trip - too windy for my liking but one evening the wind dropped and so I thought that I would take advantage. My engine (Rotax 503 DCSI) did not seems to be running as well as usual on start up but after it had warmed up, it seemed fine. After a longer take off run than usual, I took off and flew a couple of circuits around the area with out any problem. However when on finals and at about 75 feet, the engine just quit - no warning, nothing! Everything then happened very quickly and before I knew it, I was back on the ground with quite a bump. I did remember to flare but my landing was not very graceful! :) I immediately started the engine again, it kicked to life first time and has performed flawlessly ever since. I can only surmise than when the wind blows in the Makgadikgadi, it carries with it a very fine dust off the pans and maybe that dust got somewhere it should not have and caused the problem. But who knows? We are going back there for the New Year Holiday and if the wind is blowing again, I'll make sure I keep the PPC under cover!

[Snoopy_One]

You guys are all out of your minds. I ALWAYS fly with a spare engine and a fresh brain in my jacket pocket, for those demanding situations.

[indianajoe]

I have had one engine out and it was because the fuel line got clogged by the sealent around the gas gauge coming loose. I fixed it by adding another filter (cone shaped) that fits up inside the tank. It is one piece and also acts as the nipple for the fuel line to attach to. If your machine hasnt got this, I would add it. It is now impossible for my fuel line to get clogged. It would take a 3 inch piece of plastic to clog the cone filter inside the tank. Engine outs are bad experience to get, but good experience to have. :)

[Skypilot]

This past Saturday I had an incident resulting in an engine out landing. For several recent flights I have had one of the screws that attach my instrument panel to vibrate loose but I kept forgetting to fix it. I was flying at a large sod field 1/2 by 1/4 mile in size. I had just landed and made a long high speed taxi, I added power broke ground and started to climb out when all of a sudden the instrument panel popped out, the ground run had vibrated the other screw loose. I grabbed it and was trying to re-install it when I accidentally hit the Mag switch, killing the engine. I was 20-30 feet high at that point. I quickly decided to focus on landing and not try to restart the engine. The landing was uneventful, because I had plenty of room at the sod field. This incident shows how important attention to detail is in preventing accidents, in this case I knew the screw was loose but it didn't take it serious enough. Had this happened at a critical time the outcome could have been much different.

[roger]

hi, new member, new pilot. mine happened 11/23/06. bad judgement on my part. low temp low dew point, high humidity. bad combination. i have a 582 rotax, and iced carbs. 50-70' right after take-off, it got real quiet. went to full flare to slow down, and landed just fine. i was real proud of myself.
anybody out there in the royal oak mi area?

[johnbaum]

Carb ice will get your attention right away! I was flying on a low ceiling morn just below the clouds when I heard the engine miss a stroke or two. Didn't understand what it was but after a few power adjustments and all was ok, it resumed my cross country. About 3 minutes later, another miss was heard and I imediately returned to a landing site. After landing, I noticed both carbs were dripping a liquid, you got it, water. All I can figure is a piece of ice went into the engine causing a temporary problem. My friend who is always telling me to keep the maintenance up on my PPC had lack of scheduled maintenance bite him a few weeks ago. On take off his engine quit, fuel pump line to the crank case split = no fuel real quick!
Flying a Dream 503 with a Chiron and loving it!!

[CentralFLA]

I thought I'd re-circulate this one in case any of you have had engine-outs in the last seven months. Anyone have a new experience to share?

[Robert]

About 4 weeks ago I had a pretty severe accident while flying my powered parachute.

I was 9 minutes into my flight to my destination (Tangier Island) which was approximately 92.3 nautical miles away from my take-off point which was Suffolk Airport. I was at 1,800 feet and cruise climbing to 9,500 msl when without any warning my engine (Aviation Rotax 912s) instantaneously seized, it stopped so abruptly that the kinetic energy that developed in the engine torqued throughout the airframe and violently swung me around 270 degrees at approximately a 60 degree angle without any input from me. I was loaded to 1,100 lbs and carrying 60 gallons of aviation gas. As all of you know you can land on a crate of eggs without the engine quite easily, my problem was that I was directly over the downtown of a substantial city, with nowhere to land except downtown in-between scads of office buildings, people and cars everywhere. My VSI (vertical speed indicator) indicated that I was going down at 900 feet per minute. I located an area that was at that time devoid of people and I could set her down in-between the parked cars in-between two opposing buildings. I lined up in-between the two buildings that had cars parked in front of each of them leaving me with approximately 15 feet width of road to land and a cul-de-sac was at the end of the road which I could use for my landing roll out, it would have been a piece of cake, no damage to me, the aircraft or anyone else. Then as I was passing through 300 feet, I looked to my right side do a final clearing check and all of a sudden 3 people and a black and white dog came out from in-between the cars and stopped almost in the middle of my landing site just looking at me. I had to abort my landing site as I would have certainly killed them or at the very least severely injured them. There was one very old oak tree beside a building and a small active construction site to my left so I decided to fly myself into the oak tree to stop forward travel, I did so and impacted the tree at 96 feet high and then fell almost straight down and impacted the ground on the other side of the tree just 21 feet from the trunk of the oak tree, upright in a landing position. amazingly almost no damage was sustained by the powered parachute vehicle except two very slight small bends in the upright tubing of the passenger seat and a 3 inch gouge on my wind shield. Of course the motor was toast as a result of seizing, it was reported to me that the inside of the motor looks as though the components were welded together. The only injuries that I have sustained is that I have broken my back in 2 places (L-1 & T-12) but I will be A-Ok and flying within 6 months. I am now at home from the hospital recuperating. I was practicing for my upcoming flight from Florida to the Bahamas, so for precautionary reasons I had a “chase plane” which was a twin engine Piper Seneca following / orbiting me during my flight to Tangier Island as this was going to be a total distance of 186 mile flight, mostly over water (Chesapeake Bay). The chase plane was also able to radio May-day calls for me as I was going down and reported my exact position thus the amazingly quick response time that the ambulance reached me at the impact site.
What caused the engine seizure was the sudden loss of all the oil in the engine originating from the oil filter location. The FAA, Rotax and NTSB are investigating to see if the oil filter was installed improperly by the certified A&P mechanic that performed the maintenance or if the oil filter had faults during the manufacturing process.

[Skypilot]

WOW!! What an adventure, just out of curiosity since you were planning significant over water travel what sort of equipment/provisions did you make for a forced water landing. We have had several discussions on that subject and I'm interested in your point of view.