Engine Failure! Pilot Shares Experience of Emergency Landing from Low Altitude

my name is Brad keener I'm based here in Harrison Arkansas apply 1978 - 10 Mike it's got the normally aspirated IO 550 the Atlantic aero conversion in it was a great airplane I've had it for coming up on three years and I grew up the line at 2:10 my dad owns a seventy eight to ten still with the turbocharger on it and so to tens or what I knew had to go from knowing how to fly to tens I'm learning to fly one fifty two and then jumped right back into the 210 after and so I have I think I've got like 40 hours logged and 152 and everything else is in a high performance 210 aviation is really kind of my passion in life I'm a dentist but dentistry is what allows me to be able to fly so to get into this story two weeks ago my wife and I left Harrison we flew to Orlando I actually could send me was where we landed flew into there for a friend of my wife's wedding stay two days there and figured since we were so far south that we might as well take advantage of it and we departed to send me Tuesday about noon to head down to Key West supposed to be about an hour and a half enroute time we take off Attica semi normally I like to fly high ten twelve thousand if it's anything close to an hour in length just to have that buffer but since we're going over the keys and I've never flown that route before I wanted to stay low to see it and so I filed for four thousand feet down there we do an instrument flight plan pretty much every time so we depart Kissimmee uneventful climb out of Kissimmee up to 4,000 they kind of vector surround some airspace and we get to 4,000 and set our kind of crew settings back the power off back the RPMs off drop the fuel flow a little bit and we get settled in for 45 minutes of uneventful flying until we get to the keys and then there's a loud I don't know how to describe it as a pop or a bang but allowed noise out of the engine and then all my gauges all mine on electric instruments everything goes to zero rpms or zero oil pressure zero gyre I mean everything is failed on me start doing a little troubleshooting make sure fuel is still on make sure mixtures full rich prop is full and full throttle and this point I realize my engine is done make my Mayday calls Miami center simply setting the old Mayday Mayday Mayday once here Bravo we've lost lost our engine I don't remember the exact words but something along those lines my presenter wants to problems later buddy once the drugs good we had a major system failure when I turned back towards that Lake Airport right behind it at this point kind of looking back I remembered I just crossed an airport and so I start my 180-degree turn to the left while I'm making my mayday call I grab a checklist and hand it to my wife who's flying copilot with me and I tell her I said there's there's an area on the back that is in flight loss of engine power find that and start reading it to me and so at this point I'm pitching for 85 knots which is our best glide in the 210 I'm trying to look at the airport visually and I'm getting instructions from Miami Center on what to do they clear me down to 2,000 feet which at this point they could have not cleared me down and I was I mean I'm a glider at this point start heading back to Lake Wales Airport realize that I'm not going to make it I want this garlic gross death with a full toss about five miles previously we have lake well since that may not be able to make it all the way there just I was dropping way too quick and 85 knots with no power in the 210 is about 800 feet a minute drop so at this point I'll make the decision that you know I've got to find somewhere to land this airplane my decision tree became you know I put it down in the road or got put down the field or do I do I continue to the airport and get as close as I can the area south bay record is pretty wooded and kind of marshy and so that quickly became a know in my mind and all the roads seem to have powerlines beside them and so it became a field and so I started trying to pick out a field that was good approach for me in there and had suitable landing area found a field called Miami Center and hold them said hey I'm not making the airport we've got a field picked out about three miles south I'm gonna try to put down in there you're probably like well there's a road you sound a bit working trying to put it down about three miles south being like well and so at this point we're kind of getting set up for and in my mind what it's gonna be a crash tell my wife say you know when we get close to the ground I want you to keep your door open just open the handle pop it out and stay buckled in said then as soon as we get stopped get as far away from the airplane as you can so we get down about 500 foot over the ground I dropped year dropped full flaps and picked out an area in this pasture away from cows away from trees and set it down as best I could ended up the mains when I touched down still nose high the man struck an irrigation ditch and pop me up and I was such a low airspeed I the left wing dipped and I really thought I was about to cartwheel this airplane was able to somehow get it back leveled put mains back down and got it slowed down on the ground and we walked away from with no injuries walk away from with no damage to the airplane and I don't know how just things happened and the only reason I have for it is you know God had his hand on us that day and that's all I know we said here a Bravo reported all the ground safely bill passed you sure it was amazing to me in all of this how differently myself and my wife processed everything I don't know if it was just us or if it's a man versus a woman thing we both stayed were very calm during everything I mean I was a lot calmer than I thought I would have been listening to the htc audio and she and she was fantastic so we get on the ground we get out from the airplane and I remember grabbing her and giving her a big hug I said are you okay and she said yeah and then the weight of everything kind of hit me and I member just kind of not falling on the ground squatting on the ground in the ball and just sobbing for you know five or ten minutes while the weight of everything you know we've got three kids I mean we were super close to opening three kids and so my anxiety peaked really quick were awfully quick within 30 minutes I was pretty well back to normal whereas hers is more of a gradual thing this all happened about 12:00 12:30 in the afternoon and five or six that night her anxiety kind of started peaking having all these thoughts if you know I don't think I can ever fly again you know if I am never flying again it's gonna be in a twin-engine which that's kind of my next step is working on my multi rating and probably upgrading to Baron or senator or something like that I talked to a good friend of mine in Kansas City he flies at Seneca and he's an older guy very experienced pilot and he told me said you know Brad he said losing an engine single engine is fine in Florida it's fine in Kansas Nebraska wherever he said losing a single losing an engine and single engine and the hills of Arkansas where you fly is fatal and said you know best-case scenario you're in the valley of these mountains and you're trying to hike your way out to get somebody you're not in the field and so I said you know at winds that we just gonna get you somewhere a little bit safer he may not take you to the airport he said you know it's at least gonna get you out of the mountains a little bit or close to an airport I got tired of watching aircraft recovery team ripped the wings off of my beautiful 210 and so I say you know I'm leavin y'all with this and so we got in the car and we drove the seven hours to Key West which I realized on that trip why I hate driving and I would rather fly everywhere so my buddy that flies the bear and he is offered to anytime I want to just take me up and I've yet to fly in a small airplane it's been two weeks we've had crappy winter weather here in Arkansas so it's been poor and you know my plan is to get back with him and get to where I can fly again to where hopefully the anxiety doesn't build up so much of me that I never do it fine is a huge part of my life my kids love flying my wife loves flying I've been flying since before I was born and so it's something I don't want to lose at my life because of some irrational fears that I develop everybody tells me oh you know you could have died well I could have died in a car driving to work this morning or there's two million different ways I could have died and I don't want to live my life and fear of dying to lose something I love and the engine is currently in Mina getting overhauled the preliminary thoughts are the crankshaft sheared on it don't know for sure yet I had her back effects corn in the engine but crank chef sheared who else enzyme he doesn't get checked you don't check the crank every annual like you check cylinder walls and bowels and everything something that's supposed to last you had for some reason it didn't everybody tells me it's bad luck for me that day but I like to look at his good luck I mean I've landed of 210 in the field without an engine and nobody got hurt and the airplane didn't get hurt and kind of agreed to do this video to teach other people I've got a closed curve Aviation friends we've been emailing to text them back and forth about this but a few things that I could I would really implore to all pilots to do as you know the Train anybody and therefore nurse Ilana right see with if it's your eleven-year-old daughter like I have get them trained making radio calls where you know for some reason you have a heart attack and you become incapacitated they know how to at least get in touch with somebody or read an emergency checklist or what to do train them as much as possible and I told somebody say you know there may not be a full crew member but an extra set of eyes even looking for an airport when you're shooting an approach you know you're flying the instruments having somebody go hey you know I've gotten the rabbit coming in practice things practice your short field landings we got 6,500 feet Harrison my goal is to land in less than 25 to be stopped and off the runway in less than 2,500 every time I do it sometimes I don't sometimes it sucks but practice your short field landings I got lucky one of the things when I did my biennial flight review in July we're flying along and instructor I'm with pulse power he said you've lost your engines what are you doing so we end up on the field and we just kind of set best glide and we spiral down to it you lose a couple thousand feet and say you know you did perfect that I trust you can land in field but it's one of the things you don't practice you don't expect to have lost an engine and I told somebody else file an IFR flight plan every time you fly or minimum get VFR flight following had I not known that Airport was right behind me I don't know what I would have done and then it would have been you call you tune your radio to 121 five you call your emergency they give you a squawk code they've got identify you on radar they've got to figure out where you are Miami knew right where I was I mean they look me up popped me up on the screen so you know Lake Wales is behind you five miles and they knew exactly where I wasn't exactly where to send people to told my wife I say you know it's amazing how quickly I did stuff in the airplane without having to think of you know what is the next step it just happened and I mean the whole start-finish process is four minutes that's not much time to get anything done I'm here I mean no injuries no bruises no seat belt sores from getting thrown into anything and I kind of plane that on ten weeks we'll be back flying again and hopefully I'll be in it babysitter says here Bravo reported all the ground safely go past future

Channel: CorbinAviation

Views: 121,755

Keywords: aviation, flying, adventures, engine failure, crash landing, pilot survives crash, pilot shares experience, cessna 210, cessna crash, airlplane crash, impossible turn, airplane lands in field, off airport landing, flight training, aviation101, flight documentary, general aviation, fear of flying, how to become a pilot, pilot life, aviation mechanic, cause of crash, emergency off airport landing, pilot life vlog, air traffic controller, emergency landing, cessna crash landing

Id: QosZ4aCOcdg

Length: 12min 32sec (752 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 15 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Stronger_Raven]

I thought he handled it very well throughout the entire ordeal. His radio work was calm and he even put it down close to road to ensure first responders could get to them quickly. Good job by the pilot!

[u/PM_ME_PA25_PHOTOS]

Good job to that guy for following rule #1 (don't die)

Comment: Mayday call at 3500 feet with an airport 5 miles behind. That isn't going to work in a 210 glider. Airplane pilots tend to do this...make a turn toward an airport they have little chance of making. Pilot ended up not even halfway back to that airport. At 4000 feet in a 210 you have 3 or 4 minutes to be set up for a forced landing. The landing area should be chosen before the engine fails.

The desire to move to a twin is understandable. I just think there are a lot of sucker light twins have two engines because they very much need them and they crash a lot faster. And they break at least twice as often. The only thing scarier than those light twins are the very high performance singles...where this would have been over in 2 minutes.

[u/Santos_Dumont]

Off-airport landings is why I want to train in a tailwheel.

[u/superOOk]

Will be interesting to see if indeed his crankshaft sheared. This can happen when more than one cylinder is pulled without using torque plates. This can sometimes untorque the bearings and causes them to slip, which then causes the oil to not make it into the aligned holes between the journal and bearings and then you have metal on metal...boom!