Cessna Twin Down, Middlefield, OH 10/13

If the crash happened at 5:30 a.m. and they were flying for 2 hours, that means they preflighted around 3:00 a.m. and flew the entire trip in the dark. It's easy to imagine missing something during preflight or in flight. Forgot to lean, didn't see water in an aux tank sump, etc. It's hard to read a checklist if you have an emergency in the dark. Also, losing an engine in night VMC is something most pilots don't directly train for the way we do with day VMC and simulated IMC engine failures. Thankfully, with the outcome of this mishap, there's a decent chance the pilot can eventually tell us exactly what went wrong.

I offer some data points to help with the speculation. I fly a 310R, which has VGs but a stock airspeed indicator. If you re-mark the ASI, the VGs give you lower Vmc, lower stall speeds, and an increased gross weight. A 310R's useful load can lap at the shores of 2,000 lbs. I don't know the configuration of the mishap plane, but it's hard to overload a 310R.

Going partly from memory, at gross weight at sea level, the stock Vmc is 80 KIAS and with VGs it's 71 KIAS, despite the increased gross weight. Clean stall speed at gross is 72 stock and 70 with VGs. Vyse is 106 either way. A healthy 310R that started at gross and burned off 50 gallons of gas by flying for 2 hours would weigh 5200 lbs. Based on the single-engine charts in the POH, it should have a service ceiling around 8,000 feet and the rate of climb out of 1,000 MSL should be 200 or 300 ft/min.

There are anywhere from two up to six fuel tanks, but the system isn't as complicated as it sounds. The tip tanks are the mains and hold 50 gallons each. I think all 310R's have aux wing tanks, which can be 20 or 31.5 gallons each. There are optional wing locker tanks, which are usually found on only one side so you can still use the whole other wing locker. Wing locker tanks get pumped into another tank (main or aux, I'm not sure since I don't have a locker tank) by a pilot-controlled electric pump. There are not as many fuel sumps as a new 172, but more than a PA-28. My plane has 8 sumps: main, aux, engine, and crossfeed valve on each side.

Crossfeed is only from the main tank. Excess fuel not used by the engine gets pumped back to the main tank. The boost pumps are hooked up to the main tanks. So you take off and land on the mains, but your goal is to keep them full since aux fuel can be trapped if you lose an engine driven fuel pump (boost pump can only draw from main) or an an engine (crossfeed can only draw from main). If you start with full tanks, you fly 60 or 90 minutes (for the 20 or 31.5 gallon aux tanks, respectively) on the mains to make room for the returned excess fuel, switch to the auxes and run them dry, then switch back to a mostly-full main tank. I flight plan 175 KTAS, 28 gallons in the first hour, and 24 gallons an hour after that.
 
Tantalum said:
(A) people don't practice true single engine ops enough (or ever). They do their multi training and check ride, buy their 310 or Baron.. and then 25 years later when it happens in real life they screw up. I was talking with an aerostar pilot and instructor, even that will fly just fine on one engine.. if you are competent
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yes exactly

my cfi friend who has been flying twins for decades told me he spends an hour or two every couple months on engine out/emergency practice -every twin is different with different numbers / procedures etc

so keep fresh-not good figuring out which plane you are in during emergency haha
 
iamtheari said:
If the crash happened at 5:30 a.m. and they were flying for 2 hours, that means they preflighted around 3:00 a.m. and flew the entire trip in the dark.
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Go back and look at the flight history. It had been flying for most of the last 24 hours. Looking at the flight history I am guessing the accident pilot started around 7pm the night before, if there was a crew change.
 
Plano Pilot said:
Go back and look at the flight history. It had been flying for most of the last 24 hours. Looking at the flight history I am guessing the accident pilot started around 7pm the night before, if there was a crew change.
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Yowza. Looks like quite the shuffle between OH, MA, FL, and maybe some other states I haven’t even heard of.
 
Plano Pilot said:
Go back and look at the flight history. It had been flying for most of the last 24 hours. Looking at the flight history I am guessing the accident pilot started around 7pm the night before, if there was a crew change.
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Pilot 1: We've bought 106 hours of multi time to split, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and we're wearing sunglasses.

Pilot 2: Hit it.

Corollary: Can I log PIC if I'm sleeping?
 
Tantalum said:
..flown competently just about any twin will be able to execute a shallow climb on one engine. Typical single engine service ceilings are around 8K.. some lower, some higher.
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Overall great post, put the statement I quoted is a bit misleading. It really depends A LOT on weight.

Very few GA twins are going to be able to maintain altitude at 8k at full gross weight.

Weight has a huge effect on single engine service ceiling. If single engine climb performance is required, then you need to consider that in your loading.

That said, I’d still rather descend at 100 fpm after an engine failure in a twin than 700 or so after losing an engine in a single.
 
Tantalum said:
Another note about twins and engine failures..

Not every engine failure is a catastrophic loss of power. Just as realistic might be a stuck valve, steady decreasing loss of oil pressure, bad magneto, etc...
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Once lost a cylinder head (complete head to barrel separation) in the Beech 18 over the mountains in AZ. Left engine started running rough. Didn’t realize what actually happened until I landed and saw it. Engine made still made good power until shutdown.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Once lost a cylinder head (complete head to barrel separation) in the Beech 18 over the mountains in AZ. Left engine started running rough. Didn’t realize what actually happened until I landed and saw it. Engine made still made good power until shutdown.
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Had a guy land at our airport in an At Cat when I was a line guy…he had blown a jug on his first pass over the field. Finished out the load, but decided not to fly back home. :rolleyes:
 
Fearless Tower said:
I’d still rather descend at 100 fpm after an engine failure in a twin than 700 or so after losing an engine in a single.
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Exactly!

Not to mention all the other benefits a twin brings like better general overall climb performance, more stable ride, better useful, etc
 
Ok, on twins, and engine out practice. A guy on know does not like actual practice of single engine emergency in his plane, does not want to hurt it. I think he is willing to shut it down slowly, but not all at once.

What gives with actual emergency practice for proficiency?
 
4RNB said:
Ok, on twins, and engine out practice. A guy on know does not like actual practice of single engine emergency in his plane, does not want to hurt it. I think he is willing to shut it down slowly, but not all at once.

What gives with actual emergency practice for proficiency?
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The sudden cooling and then sudden restart and back to 2500 rpm is probably not ideal, but to do it once or twice a year for proficiency sake I would imagine is worth it

When I last did this kind of proficiency work the instructor would at some point in the flight randomly pull one of the levers closed between us.. it's a better simulation than just pulling one of the mixtures back in my opinion as it does catch you a little more off guard and make you look at more things, like the fuel

That was in a piece of crap trainer. But I also think the whole shock-cooling thing is largely a myth. Maybe in a high performance tight tolerance engine a sudden temperature change can dramatically change clearances enough to actually damage something, but I imagine these hand assembled sandcast antique engines have more than enough clearance in the internal components...
 
.. that guy above will hurt his plane a lot more when he's unable to fly safely to an airport because of an engine failure he was unwilling to practice
 
4RNB said:
What gives with actual emergency practice for proficiency?
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Zero thrust on one engine.

Reduce power and adjust prop until the engine is producing no power. It feels like a feathered prop.

Believe me, I have done both and zero thrust feels closest to the real thing, only with zero thrust the engine can be brought back to life at anytime.
 
Zeldman said:
Zero thrust on one engine.

Reduce power and adjust prop until the engine is producing no power. It feels like a feathered prop.

Believe me, I have done both and zero thrust feels closest to the real thing, only with zero thrust the engine can be brought back to life at anytime.
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I think my plane even has charts for the power settings to get zero thrust at different altitudes. Close the throttle all the way and you have some windmilling, bring it back a hair to get zero thrust.

Tantalum said:
When I last did this kind of proficiency work the instructor would at some point in the flight randomly pull one of the levers closed between us.. it's a better simulation than just pulling one of the mixtures back in my opinion as it does catch you a little more off guard and make you look at more things, like the fuel
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Those sneaky MEIs will find many ways to kill your perfectly healthy engines when you're not even looking. That's probably the whole MEI checkride: Kill the engine without the examiner noticing how you did it. Kind of like counter-sniper school.
 
4RNB said:
Ok, on twins, and engine out practice. A guy on know does not like actual practice of single engine emergency in his plane, does not want to hurt it. I think he is willing to shut it down slowly, but not all at once.

What gives with actual emergency practice for proficiency?
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I hear this a lot with the geared-engine twin crowd. I think they're nuts to trade proficiency for a possibly lower maintenance bill.
 
schmookeeg said:
I hear this a lot with the geared-engine twin crowd. I think they're nuts to trade proficiency for a possibly lower maintenance bill.
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I think the geared engine folks have a point on this one. But it doesn’t have to be a dichotomy. They should be doing recurrent training in simulators or renting a similar non-geared plane to abuse.

As someone who may someday want to upgrade to a 421, I am okay with people babying those GTSIOs.
 
iamtheari said:
I think the geared engine folks have a point on this one. But it doesn’t have to be a dichotomy. They should be doing recurrent training in simulators or renting a similar non-geared plane to abuse.

As someone who may someday want to upgrade to a 421, I am okay with people babying those GTSIOs.
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They should hope that the engine failure will treat them so kindly and gently in the moment. :D

Agree otherwise though -- Simulator can bridge some gap here, but man, they've gotta know what it's like when one of the donks decides to pack it all up in an instant. It will surely not be a slow milking of throttle as RPMs are held as low as possible. It will be a "sayonara sucka" and sensory overload as it all goes haywire.

I'd still trade chattery gearbox for an annual set of OEI workouts in the machine, abruptly served by a sadistic MEI. And to your excellent point, dessert should be a few runs in the Sim for the really dangerous Vmc/Vr cut stuff. Ideally administered by the same MEI :D
 
I’ve always thought some of my best multi engine training was towing gliders in Pawnees…plenty of abrupt rudder work to simulate engine failure in a multi when students got a little wild back there.
 
From the Flight Aware log it looks like fatigue will be a major factor in the accident report.
 
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