How common are aborted take-offs?

Morne

Morne

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Morne
A couple of recent threads have me wondering just how common it is to abort a take off. In the last year I have aborted three (3). One for the seat slide, one because the engine responded sluggishly on throttle up and I forget why on the third.

How about everyone else? For purposes of discussion, let's consider "aborted take-off" to be on the runway after throttle up and prior to lift off.
 
I've had a few, all in singles. As others have hinted, in twins there's a lot more judgment and rules involved at whether you abort or take the problem into the air. Bad/late abort decisions have proven deadly.
 
Pretty rare outside of ME training. After nearly 10,000 hours, I probably haven't done more than 10 outside of training.
 
I'd say about 1 per 500 flights or so outside of training. It always been for some system indication for me. Never had an engine failure on takeoff in almost 2 decades of flying.
 
None so far while actually on the runway. But about 3 at the hold short line during run-up.
 
Once when wind shifted from headwind to a strong tailwind as I began my roll, trying to beat a storm front coming through the area.
 
I would guess the same balkpark as Ron, maybe between five and ten. I've never counted.
 
28 years and close to 3000 hours, I remember a couple, one nose baggage door popped open, my first trip in a 441 :mad2: second one was an electrical problem at about 80 knots in the Citation. :hairraise: might have had another, but these two come to mind.:D
 
I've had two: One in an Arrow that wasn't developing full power. It suffered from the Lycoming bad cam problem. (engine past TBO, replaced)
Two, I forgot the tennis ball on the pitot blade on an Archer. Airspeed not alive, on the brakes at about 50 kts.

-Skip
 
One actual in my career. An unsecured tarp flew across the runway and hit #4 at St. Paul Is. Did a precautionary abort, checked for visible damage, ran up the engine to see if we had any vibration, then got out of there before anything else came blowing by.
 
I have had a few thats for sure. Most recently was mx installed the wrong brake caliper assembly on one side of the mains, went to take off and it was dragging so bad I couldn't maintain directional control.
 
First take-off I ever attempted. My instructor's door popped open. None since.
 
Only twice in 15 years for legit non-practice reasons. Once for an engine that sagged badly as I pushed the power up, once at about 50 knots when the passenger door popped open.
 
Two. One was on a short grass strip and wasn't aborted quite in time. Mr. NTSB man blamed me for DA issues. He was half right - I should have had my decision point earlier. As it turned out I had a bad cylinder with very low compression.
 
Nav/Strobe light circuits blew at night on takeoff roll (ended up being an overcharging generator with a bad voltage regulator).
 
I had one a few weeks ago after a fuel stop on my return trip from Sun n Fun. Run up was fine, nothing abnormal. Upon going to full throttle for take-off, there was some hesitation and I aborted take off. The problem ended up being a partially clogged fuel filter. It could flow enough fuel for the run-up, but not enough for full power.
 
Outside of training? Once, maybe twice.
 
In 1600+ hours, I've aborted just one take-off, when I could not gain flying speed in our old '48 Ercoupe because I kept hitting piles of loamy soil dug up by moles, and the 'Coupe had insufficient rudder authority to raise the nosewheel off the sod.

The solution was to trundle back and forth enough times so that I had flattened all the mole piles. :lol:
 
In ~850 hours, I can remember two: once for a flock of birds that landed on the runway in front of me, and once when the passenger door popped open. There may have been one or two others though, that I can't recall at the moment.
 
Just one so far, the shimmy damper in a Cherokee gave up the fight. We pretty much knew it would happen, since it had done it for a second when I let my taxi speed creep up a bit on the loooooong taxi back to the end of the runway. That feeling is instantly recognizable.
 
Two since 1991.

One for a door pop with tons of runway remaining.

Second I don't know if you could classify as an on-runway abort, but should have been. Few years ago, I lifted off after a night T&G with flaps stuck at 40 with tons of runway remaining. Knew it had come off way too soon and knew why. Chopped power and flared. Better option than trying to milk it around the pattern.

Don't do T&G at night anymore now unless the runway is reeeeealy long. Tend to do stop-and-go or full-stop/taxi-back nowadays. It also "re-ingrained" the training to always LOOK out the window at Cessna flaps to see they're in motion after the selector is moved.
 
Captain said:
I'd say about 1 per 500 flights or so outside of training.
Click to expand...

That's right on the money for me. 3 aborts (that I can recall anyway) in about 1500 hours. The most recent one was a few weeks ago when I had a wrench land on my lap when I got off the brakes and accelerated. I had just had IFR certification completed on the aircraft and they left a wrench on the glare shield.
 
Once in ten years, for some sort of multi-legged arthropod that had wedged itself and its offspring into my pilot/static system.
 
steingar said:
Once in ten years, for some sort of multi-legged arthropod that had wedged itself and its offspring into my pilot/static system.
Click to expand...


Had this once, I elected to continue the take off and get home where I could conduct the proper repair.
 
I've experienced two real world aborts - one in a SE (Cardinal RG) and one in a Twin (DC-3).

Cardinal was a bit hairy as I was still pretty low time in the airplane and in complex planes in general. Clogged fuel injector resulted in less than full takeoff power, but the airplane had been perfectly fine on the runup. My low time/experience combined with a high DA and slight upslope on the runway masked the problem on the roll. I noticed that the plane seemed to be accelerating a little slower and takeoff roll was longer but was able to rotate and liftoff.....and then the plane felt like it just didn't want to fly, so at about 25' AGL I aborted and set it back down. If it had been a short runway, I would have been in trouble.

Second was a power surge in the left engine on a DC-3 on the takeoff roll. Aborted early and pretty much a non-event.
 
Once. Door popped open on takeoff roll.

1800 hours.
 
I can only remember one that I have done. The engine hiccuped a time or two on takeoff roll. Aborted to investigate. Found a bees hive at the carb.
 
I might be wrong but I don't remember doing one, even in training. We talked about it / briefed it but that was all.
 
Hmm. I missed one. I aborted a takeoff early when Jesse and I experienced the static system problem at night in Nebraska launching into a black hole.

Again, plenty of runway but it probably wasn't the nicest thing my brake pads have ever had requested of them. It was very cold out that night, which helped.

We did some troubleshooting, briefed that we'd monitor the problem, and if it did anything odd on alternate static, I'd fly known power and pitch and ignore the flaky instrument on the next attempt.

It acted weird again so pitch + power and we were on our way back to KLNK VFR. Problem cleared and never re-occurred. Best estimate was ice in the static system.

So I guess I've had three. Hrumph. I'm over my allotment. Y'all can have the rest. :)
 
Three in 160 hours. Two of them for a blocked pitot tube -- no airspeed indication as I began the takeoff roll. The third one was when the oil filler door on the 182 popped open as I accelerated.
 
Only one in 500+ hours. That was on my checkride. No airspeed. Pulled into parking, DPE deplaned, "FIXED the problem", and carried on with the flightcheck.
I might have been suspicious but I was too wrapped up in the flightcheck itself.
 
A few; not very many. A few in different light airplanes and ag aircraft, a few in light twins, A couple of times in large radial airplanes (more continued takeoffs with engine failures though...rejecting the takeoff becomes a very dangerous affair in large aircraft), and a few in turboprop and turbojet equipment ranging from the King Air to the B747.

We do a lot more of them in training than we're every likely to see on the line while flying, though we do brief every takeoff with a reject in mind. We're very careful to brief what we will and won't use for our reject criteria, and the speeds at which we'll consider the reject, and the speeds at which we're continuing the takeoff anyway. Important stuff.
 
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