Do engine out landigs have to be reported?

A

Ashara Keliyn

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Say I'm flying at a rural, un-towered airport, doing some pattern work and my engine quits. Being in the pattern, I manage to perform an uneventful engine out landing without as much as inconveniencing anyone (even have enough energy to exit the runway and roll to my hangar).
Does this need to be reported to NTSB or FAA?
What about towered airport? Of course the controller will know and clear me, but do they have to report?
 
Ashara Keliyn said:
Say I'm flying at a rural, un-towered airport, doing some pattern work and my engine quits. Being in the pattern, I manage to perform an uneventful engine out landing without as much as inconveniencing anyone (even have enough energy to exit the runway and roll to my hangar).
Does this need to be reported to NTSB or FAA?
What about towered airport? Of course the controller will know and clear me, but do they have to report?
Click to expand...
Assuming you're flying some sort of single-engine piston bug smasher, no.

www.law.cornell.edu

49 CFR § 830.5 - Immediate notification.

www.law.cornell.edu www.law.cornell.edu
 
Ashara Keliyn said:
Say I'm flying at a rural, un-towered airport, doing some pattern work and my engine quits. Being in the pattern, I manage to perform an uneventful engine out landing without as much as inconveniencing anyone (even have enough energy to exit the runway and roll to my hangar).
Does this need to be reported to NTSB or FAA?
What about towered airport? Of course the controller will know and clear me, but do they have to report?
Click to expand...
No, but, if you don't, and you post about it on a forum, Homeland Security will add it to your social credit history, and that's even worse long-term than not reporting it in triplicate form to your nearest FSDO, police station, and fire department.

;)
 
Not required but it’s a good idea from a safety standpoint to at least submit a ASRS report so others might benefit from the cause of the failure.
 
Ashara Keliyn said:
Say I'm flying at a rural, un-towered airport, doing some pattern work and my engine quits. Being in the pattern, I manage to perform an uneventful engine out landing without as much as inconveniencing anyone (even have enough energy to exit the runway and roll to my hangar).
Does this need to be reported to NTSB or FAA?
What about towered airport? Of course the controller will know and clear me, but do they have to report?
Click to expand...
Maybe if you’re flying a turbine plane. I cannot find anything that says the Tower has to report it to anyone. In your scenario you wouldn’t have even had to have told the Tower. Of course you would have though, you couldn’t have known you’d be able to taxi to parking unimpeded.
 
Ashara Keliyn said:
Say I'm flying at a rural, un-towered airport, doing some pattern work and my engine quits. Being in the pattern, I manage to perform an uneventful engine out landing without as much as inconveniencing anyone (even have enough energy to exit the runway and roll to my hangar).
Does this need to be reported to NTSB or FAA?
What about towered airport? Of course the controller will know and clear me, but do they have to report?
Click to expand...
Yes, if you suffer a total loss of engine power and have enough energy to land, exit the runway and to roll to your hangar you should definitely report this scientific discovery, but not to the FAA or NTSB.
 
If you did then there would be a whole lot of YouTubers out there who post videos of off airport landings in their STOL airplanes that would be in trouble. Now if the plane was damaged during the off airport landing that would be different.
 
And most, but not all, gliders have no engine. But do have flight controls.
 
Mikey52 said:
And most, but not all, gliders have no engine. But do have flight controls.
Click to expand...
Some airplanes have flight controls that others don’t…spoilers, speed brakes, slats, flaps,….that Doesn’t make those things something other than flight controls.
 
Ashara Keliyn said:
How so?
Click to expand...
All I have on this is a plausibility argument: On the pre-takeoff checklists I have seen, the items for checking the engine are separate from the ones for checking the flight controls.
 
There's also this, from the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge:

Aircraft flight control systems consist of primary and
secondary systems. The ailerons, elevator (or stabilator),
and rudder constitute the primary control system and are
required to control an aircraft safely during flight. Wing flaps,
leading edge devices, spoilers, and trim systems constitute
the secondary control system and improve the performance
characteristics of the airplane or relieve the pilot of excessive
control forces.

 
Palmpilot said:
All I have on this is a plausibility argument: On the pre-takeoff checklists I have seen, the items for checking the engine are separate from the ones for checking the flight controls.
Click to expand...
But again, these same checklists separate various flight control checks into different line items, so that’s not a valid argument.

This, however, is a valid argument…it is an FAA definition/description of flight controls, and as mentioned earlier, no definition of flight controls includes powerplants:
Palmpilot said:
There's also this, from the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge:

Aircraft flight control systems consist of primary and
secondary systems. The ailerons, elevator (or stabilator),
and rudder constitute the primary control system and are
required to control an aircraft safely during flight. Wing flaps,
leading edge devices, spoilers, and trim systems constitute
the secondary control system and improve the performance
characteristics of the airplane or relieve the pilot of excessive
control forces.

Click to expand...
 
Flight controls are moveable surfaces that respond to pilot input to alter airflow and move the aircraft about its axes. The engine, via the propeller, provides thrust.
 
Interesting, so if my flaps fail and I perform an uneventful landing it has to be reported but the engine no?
 
Ashara Keliyn said:
Interesting, so if my flaps fail and I perform an uneventful landing it has to be reported but the engine no?
Click to expand...
Correct. It’s not about whether or not the landing was uneventful. It’s collecting data, and generally speaking, engine failure data isn’t going to be unique or different enough to require ongoing analysis.
 
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