C 310R Engine Failure After Takeoff

[Music] imagine you're in a cessna 310r taking off from orange county airport in la and you have an engine quit there's not much open space out there and where the question is where would you go stick with us on flywire as we look at the crash of november 8 7 297. [Music] hi i'm scott perdue and today on flywire we're going to take a look at the short flight of c310r the cessna 310 november 87297 on the 30th june 2017. it happened about 9 30 in the morning and that the airplane took off from runway 2-0 right and that's the long run we had john wayne at 5700 feet let's take a look at the airport diagram see here 2-0 ride is the wide runway and it's 5700 feet which is fine for ga airplanes but there's lots of budget and airline traffic airlines are very heavy and very in periods there at john wayne it's a very busy place and when you fly there you get that sense of rush and pressure to get on with it no delays for jets there are pretty onerous noise restrictions that require non-normal flight techniques i used to fly out of there at 737's and you know i liked it actually because you took off in flaps 25 with full power and frankly that's impressive performance for a big airplane i enjoyed that stuff anyway one thing i did worry about was an engine failure that was there's not much room to board a takeoff and stay on the runway for jets but the 310r in this case did not face that sort of problem the poh says the excel stop distance at gross weight is 365 3645 feet which happens to be the same distance to accelerate to 92 knots and clear 50 foot obstacle runway length was not an issue in this accident the velocity min control or vmc speed of the 310r is 80 knots that is the minimum speed that the airplane has enough control authority to counter adverse roll and yaw tendencies with one engine inoperative and one at full power this is what is the red radial line that isn't the only speed you need to know to fly a 310 the cessna poh says that continued flight at vmc near the ground is improbable that's what they say the safe single engine speed is 92 knots indicated and at that speed you can maintain altitude or attracting the gear and feathering the prop the best single engine angle of climb speed is 95 knots the best single engine rate of climb speed is 106 knots and that is what is known as the blue radial line okay folks call that the blue line they're referring to the best single-engine rate of rate speed one more thing the book recommends is that the wings should be banked five degrees toward the operative engine this is actually a certification standard from the faa and light twins are designed with that speed and bank in mind it's where you should be with an engine failure in a light twin so generally for a light twin the mantra is mixture prop throttle full forward flaps up gear up identify verify feather and at that point you maintain at least safe single engine speed blue line but prefer you know or at least save signaling speed but preferably blue line and now you have a little time to go through the checklist and clean up the failed engine the mantra differs in some airplanes and you must know your particular airplane when flying a light twin i go through the mantra each time i take the runway to prepare myself to be ready for the engine failure that's going to happen in the next few seconds because it may not but it may and you need to be mentally prepared for it so let's break down the verify part it's significant that the engine instruments will not give you a definitive indication when the engine has failed as long as the propeller is spinning you're going to get some indication on the rpm gauge and the manifold pressure gauges it's hard to interpret in a glance it still looks like it's running but it should be a natural piloting reaction to deflect the rudder and attempt to keep the airplane going straight so the most reliable indication is what is known as your dead foot okay the here's a picture of the thrust vectors uh with an engine failure wing mounted engines have a significant moment arm that tries to turn the airplane into the dead engine and this is the right engine figure in this case the pilot naturally tries to correct that tendency and that is his dead foot okay the dead foot should be close to your seat not exerting any pressure on the rudder okay so it's just sitting there the other one is gonna be full that's gonna the dead foot is the side where the engine has failed so now that you've identified the failed engine you verify it by pulling the throttle closed and if there's no change in the airplane's attitude or speed well then you've verified that you've identified the correct engine and you pull the mixture to idle cut off and the feather and then feather the propeller okay it takes way longer for me to just explain what to do here than it actually takes to do in the airplane but it is essential you simply must feather the correct engine people have crashed foot in the wrong one at slow speed a light twin has marginal control and you must get that drag reduced as soon as possible even if you're below gross weight and then this particular airplane is about a thousand pounds below gross in the cessna poh after you feather the prop you establish a bank angle of five degrees into the operating engine and milk up the flaps you clear 50 foot obstacle at 92 knots then you accelerate to 106. remember the best single engine rate of climb speed blue line and adjust the trim tabs then secure the failed engine and the important point in the poh is the warning that the propeller on the inoperative engine must be feathered the landing gear retracted and wing flax wing flaps up or continued flight may be impossible okay that's a pretty important thing to put in the poh practicing this maneuver is probably the most critical thing to be familiar with and and current in when you fly light twins the initial yaw angles are very large and control is difficult very marginal the reaction must be instinctive this is the situation that the accident pilot experienced this pilot's statement to the this is the pilot statement the investigators let's look at it the pilot reported that he checked both fuel selectors in maine before starting engines and then again during the run-up and they remained that way throughout the flight shortly after departure from s a john mayer about 400 feet in the air with flaps at 15 degrees the right engine lost power he transmitted mayday to the tower controller who immediately cleared him to land and then he feathered the right propeller and was able to maintain four to five hundred feet as he turned right to the downwind in the traffic pattern okay that's what he remembers let's listen uh to the ac atc tape of that accident sequence right now [Applause] thank you virtue over departure so there's mike runway hitting i'll call your left turnout traffic over the control tower will be off your left side at all times the helicopter they're going to be landing alpha being aci room t-zone the kilo could take off crossword triple state traffic since that's a 207 in order to the right perfect take off the health shot plus [Applause] roger right traffic to right you clear the line says that again one way two's right you were cleared to land two nine steps 209 cancel your approach clearance and uh maintain three thousand slide runway heading or five year present heading all right present heading three thousand three two zero one two four zero four [Applause] yay well that pretty much matches the final report the radar data showed the airplane maintained a speed between 95 and 102 knots ground speed of course but it slowed 93 knots before it turned right towards the runway and during the turn the ground speed decrea decayed further to 81 knots not a whole lot of difference between indicated probably and ground speed at this point they're not much in the way of winds eyewitness and eyewitnesses and videos show the airplane in a 45 degree bank slightly nose high descending towards the freeway then it leveled the wings just before impacting the median two witnesses say that the airplane bank that left just before impact and the left wing did hit the ground first and the medium median shearing off that left uh fuel tank left tipping the airplane then caught fire and bystanders on the freeway is heroically i'll say heroically because it was burning they pulled both of the survivors from the wreckage and both of those people on board survived with back injuries and frankly they were very lucky it seems like a straightforward engine fair accident with a stall in the final turn pilot failed to maintain airspeed sort of thing well i went through the docket of the investigation and i want to talk about what i found but before i do i want to talk about something that i think is critically important here and the faa hit him on as well in the final report when i started flying twins i was taught that the most important thing to do after securing a failed engine was to make all turns away from the failed engine at the time folks returned referred to that as turning away from the dead you establish that five degree bank into the operating engine you raise the dead and that makes it easier to control the airplane when you turn you increase bank and this in this case to the left and then return for very small turns you can then level the wings and then the airplane will yaw into the dead engine and then you can roll roll back into the end of the operating engine but you don't let it go too far the issue here is is that turning into the dead engine at slow speed means you have very little to no ability to roll out of the turn once you started you may not stop it it would have been a better idea frankly in this case to turn left instead of right in the accident and turning to the right with the gear down used up all the available energy and the airplane stalled that was in the turn to the final turn granted the pilot avoided a spin and was able to put the airplane down on the freeway so good on him for that back to the final report at the scene the ntsb investigators inventored the airplane in the location of all the controls and switches they did a good job doing that that's kind of thing we need all the time really regarding the controls they found that all power levers were full forward the flaps were set up 15 degrees down and the right engine fuel control was on the aux tank okay it is important to note that the tip tanks of a cessna 310 are the main tanks and the aux tanks are the wing tanks in this accident both tip tanks were sheared off on at the median on impact and most of the fire was associated with the fuel spewing out of those tanks the engines and magnetos were torn down and then examined to and when they were found to have no pre-impact damage that would have prevented normal operation the props were also examined and found to have been turning at impact i want a foot stomp on this the impact mark showed that both props were at a low pitch setting at impact they were rotating and there were no indications that the right prop was feathered on impact the airplane was equipped with a jpi engine monitor and the data was downloaded and examined and it showed that the right engine quit about 40 seconds after application of the takeoff power okay it did quit so what happened why did it why did it quit well obviously the pilot thought he had run through the proper drills both for the takeoff and in handling the engine failure when it when it occurred i'll give the pilot kudos in deflecting the tower controller's radio call telling him that his gear was not down frankly if he'd put his gear down at that point then in response to the radio call the airplane would most likely have stalled and spun and crashed with loss of everyone on board he just realized in the right turn to final when he put the gear down that he could not make it to the runway and that's why he changed to go to the freeway freeway there the 405. i can relate to what the pilot was experiencing at this moment i had an engine failure and a dc3 and i'll be the first to admit that i was scared i mean it may not turn out right my right knee was shaking for a brief second i flashed on what could happen and then i flushed that and started concentrating on doing what i had to do to keep the airplane flying and to do what i needed to do the engine had failed on a simulated single engine go around so in a lot of ways it was just like an engine failure on takeoff with some altitude very much like what happened to this airplane i also turned right but the important difference here was the left engine in my case was the failed engine i could feel that i had marginal control of the airplane and i concentrated on maintaining my air speed and attitude altitude and attitude and spoiler alert that event ended well for two nine seven it did not the pilot elected to turn right which means that he had to fly with extreme precision not a recommended thing to do fly into the dead engine remember the cessna's poh says that being able to stay in the air in this situation was improbable okay looking at the mantra i think it is important and apparent that the pilot did not accomplish any of it he just flew the airplane exactly as it was when the engine failed the right engine was not feathered and not secured all the levers were pushed full forward the flaps were still in takeout position at 15 degrees down to put it simply he did not execute any of the required steps to stay in control of the airplane period i know you'll probably ask why the engine failed and like i said before it did fail remember the teardown inspection that they determined it was in perfect operating condition prior to the impact what's the cause yeah that's the big question here the main tank is specified as the tank to be used for takeoff the fuel boost pump was supposed to be on for takeoff the investigators found that the left engine was set to the main tank and the boost pump for that engine was on the right engine was set on the aux tank with the fuel boost pump on low which is what you use to switch tanks it runs but it switches tanks so it doesn't run a lot it didn't put out a lot simply the right engine failed due to fuel starvation jpi engine data showed that the engine failed approximately 40 seconds after application of takeoff power which frankly is pretty consistent with the amount of time it takes for an engine at high power to use all the fuel in the line from basically the fuel switch to uh to the engine and that matches closely to the pilots made a declaration the engine ran just long enough to get airborne if you're like me you're probably wondering why the pilot would think he had done all the right things why wouldn't he aware that when the investigation plainly showed that he did not why would he not be aware of that frankly he may not even remember himself what exactly happened and there's another clue in the documents produced during the investigation that shed some light on this situation and i think this might be pretty important the right engine was installed on the 17th of august in 2010 the accident happened on the 30th of june 2017. that's almost 7 years and in between those two times the airplane ran just 6.3 hours just six hours presumably the pilot slash owner was the person that logged those hours and was quite likely that might have been the extent of his currency and proficiency he remembered the things he was supposed to do in his head but he did not actually do them that's a little psychological trick our minds play when we're not proficient okay we don't have the habit patterns the muscle memory to make to execute that we just have a memory that we used to be good that's checklists are good maybe even critical backstops to a pilot with degraded proficiency if you watch my videos very much you know that i'm a proponent of frequent training it helps keep us sharp and that may be just the thing that keeps us alive so my nickel on the grass would be to suggest that you think about developing a set of proficiency exercises that you can practice when you fly to stay current and do that with regularity currency ride every month maybe more so thanks for watching i'll now see you next time on flywire

Channel: FlyWire- scott perdue

Views: 67,449

Keywords: C 310R Engine Failure After Takeoff, light twin engine failure, Engine Failure after takeoff John Wayne airport, Flywire, flywire online, flywire youtube, scott perdue, beechcraft bonanza, general aviation, Aviation, F33C, Aerobatic Bonanza, Aerobatics, Acrobatics, Flying, pilot vlog, flight training, flying vlog, airplane audio, cfi, pilot life, bonanza, private pilot, pilot, atc, travel, travel by plane, flying an airplane, plane crash after takeoff, cessna, cessna 310, aviation

Id: 7Ru6DQFaiXw

Length: 19min 26sec (1166 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 29 2021