Passenger Prop Strike

Ryanb said:
That’s a bad excuse. It takes a special kind of dumb to walk into running propeller. Just sayin’
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Soooo wrong. A spinning prop is almost impossible to see.

Just like gear up landings, NEVER say it won’t happen to me.
 
Bill Greenwood said:
One of the dumbest things to do it pose in a prop arc or publish a photo of someone standing in a prop arc. Its like having a Field and Stream magazine publish a photo of a hunter pointing a gun at his own head.
I have complained more than once to both EAA who sends out a brochure of a pilot hugging a prop and my Bonanza association magazine which does the same thing, but haven't made much headway.

You ought to think of a prop as like a rattlesnake, how close would you walk next to a snake just on the chance that he hadn't struck yet? There was a funny Sat Nite Live skit with John Belusi as a crazed Samari and waving a big sword around. When I look at a prop I see that image of him with a sword that might start swinging anytime.
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That’s a little extreme. We’ve gone from talking about the hazards of operating around running engines and comparing all cold engines with pointing guns at peoples heads.
 
Kritchlow said:
Soooo wrong. A spinning prop is almost impossible to see.

Just like gear up landings, NEVER say it won’t happen to me.
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I won’t say some idiot will never sneak up on me and and walk into my propeller, but THIS accident will never happen to me because nobody gets out of my airplane while the engine is running. If I see anyone walk to within about 25 ft of my airplane without being sure they know what’s going on and they are watching my airplane, then I pull the mixture. Literally the only way this will ever happen is if someone walks into me while I’m not looking.
 
When doing a procedure that requires moving the prop more than a little or turning it all the way around I verify mags cold and remove the spark plugs from the bottom of the cylinders. It makes it easier to turn the prop and eliminates the chance on an ignition accident.
 
I'm sure that works fine, but why go to all that trouble when you can just treat the prop as if the mags were actually hot, similar to what you would do with hand-propping? You can tie down the tail, lean the mixture, pull throttle then remain outside the prop arc when you move it - no cowling removal, no wrenches, no greasy hands, etc., and it takes a minute instead of an hour to do.

One other procedure that I like is to release the brake immediately after start up, which forces you to make sure the area beyond the immediate prop is also clear of any human traffic and then starts you taxiing right away. People who walk into moving props are NOT likely to walk into a moving plane. It also gets you out of the tie down area to a more remote location on the apron where you can do the rest of you pre-flight tasks. And except for glancing down to make sure oil pressure is up, there is nothing else that needs to cause you to take your eyes off the exterior, where they should be if there are any potential pedestrians in the area.
 
Of course you may need to be in the prop arc when doing maintenance or repairs, but even then it should make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. The 25 year veteran A & P killed at BJC was doing repairs, got out of a running M U 2, ducked under the wing and walked forward into the prop.
 
Bill Greenwood said:
Of course you may need to be in the prop arc when doing maintenance or repairs, but even then it should make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. The 25 year veteran A & P killed at BJC was doing repairs, got out of a running M U 2, ducked under the wing and walked forward into the prop.
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You're giving examples of people walking into moving props, but you made a comment equating touching a nonmoving prop with pointing a loaded gun at someone's head.

It is not the same thing.
 
Computerjim said:
When doing a procedure that requires moving the prop more than a little or turning it all the way around I verify mags cold and remove the spark plugs from the bottom of the cylinders. It makes it easier to turn the prop and eliminates the chance on an ignition accident.
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Remove the spark plugs?

I can just imagine using that method on radials...

Yeah, lets completely de-cowl both engines on the Beech 18, remove 18 spark plugs before we pull the props through to check for hydraulic lock. Then we can reinstall/retorque those 18 spark plugs and re-cowl the engines before we fire them up.
 
Fearless, we can agree that you should be the exception to regarding the prop arc as a danger area. And if you are going to make case about what I wrote, at least be honest enough to do it accurately. I never wrote anything about pointing a Loaded gun anywhere much less at a person's head. Perhaps you have never grown up around guns, but where I did with my Brother and Dad as hunters, the first prime rule was always to keep the gun pointed down, never point it at something, much less someone, unless you are going to shoot it. That is easier to do than the 2nd rule which is to have the gun unloaded most times. You can't pick up a rifle or shotgun and tell if it is loaded but you can know which way you are pointing it. In your case, I'd ignore all these practices, and lets see a photo of you leaning on a prop while looking down a gun barrel.
 
Kritchlow said:
Soooo wrong. A spinning prop is almost impossible to see.

Just like gear up landings, NEVER say it won’t happen to me.
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I like to file my fingernails on spinning airplane propellers.
 
Bill Greenwood said:
One of the dumbest things to do it pose in a prop arc or publish a photo of someone standing in a prop arc. Its like having a Field and Stream magazine publish a photo of a hunter pointing a gun at his own head.
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Bill Greenwood said:
I never wrote anything about pointing a Loaded gun anywhere much less at a person's head.
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You must have forgotten what you’ve written, I’ll remind you.

Nonetheless, I’ve always been taught to treat the propeller like a loaded gun.
 
Bill Greenwood said:
I never wrote anything about pointing a Loaded gun anywhere much less at a person's head..
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You said:
Bill Greenwood said:
One of the dumbest things to do it pose in a prop arc or publish a photo of someone standing in a prop arc. Its like having a Field and Stream magazine publish a photo of a hunter pointing a gun at his own head.
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Your words, not mine.
 
I was thinking about this today while doing my preflight. If the mixture is at cutoff, throttle at idle, master off, is it still possible for the ol' Lycoming to spring to life? I'm not always he last person to have shut the plane down, so I can only assume its been done properly. Then again I've seen the fuel pump left on, the avionics master left on, etc., so that theory isn't foolproof.

What's the best way to go about being safe when walking up to an airplane that's not been running?
 
Bill Greenwood said:
Of course you may need to be in the prop arc when doing maintenance or repairs, but even then it should make the hair stand up on the back of your neck. The 25 year veteran A & P killed at BJC was doing repairs, got out of a running M U 2, ducked under the wing and walked forward into the prop.
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Yep, I was in ground school with one of the Roach girls when that happened.
 
Two days ago, I talked to a Cirrus employee at the gas pump at a little airport near here. Shortly after that, he started the engine of his SR22, taxied a hundred yards to the airport building, and then .... to my surprise ... he left his engine running while his passenger (another Cirrus employee) went in the building.

I was thinking about this thread the whole time I watched that. It did not look like a really smart operation.
 
Rynab , I assume you can read as well as hit the quote button, if so go look again at what I wrote and the word "LOADED" is nowhere in there. "LOADED is only claimed by you and "Fearless". But hey, if I had written about a 'LOADED" gun it would not apply to him as he is "fearless of props as well as guns it seems.
He's only put off by quoting someone accurately. And he must be a great young eagle pilot if he ever does those rides, unlikely to burden young people with any stuffy old concerns about safety.
 
One of the nicest guys I know and a very experienced mechanic at one of the top restoration shops lost his leg to a prop strike, I'm not sure of the details. On my 2nd trip to Oshkosh I stopped and Norfolk and the lineman had injured shoulder, he had walked into a C-150 prop.
I think the Young Eagles program by the EAA has only two or three fatalities and one of them is a parent walking into a prop of a running plane.
 
flyingron said:
It may seem so, but it happens far to regularly, even with people who are not unfamiliar with aircraft.

I learned this early on. I was based at Jeffco when one of the mechanics from Roach walked into the prop on an MU-2 and died. You see this time and time again.
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Guy must have been deaf.
Edit: but as I think about it. Probably thought it was a jet if he walked in from the backside. Wouldn’t see the prop spinning
 
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Bill Greenwood said:
Rynab , I assume you can read as well as hit the quote button, if so go look again at what I wrote and the word "LOADED" is nowhere in there. "LOADED is only claimed by you and "Fearless". But hey, if I had written about a 'LOADED" gun it would not apply to him as he is "fearless of props as well as guns it seems.
He's only put off by quoting someone accurately. And he must be a great young eagle pilot if he ever does those rides, unlikely to burden young people with any stuffy old concerns about safety.
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You need to get a grip. Whether or not the word ‘loaded’ was in your original post or not is irrelevant. In reality, as much of a gun connoisseur as you claim to be, you should realize that there’s essentially zero difference between pointing a ‘loaded’ gun toward your head or an unloaded gun toward your head - it’s the same principle. Treat all guns as though they’re loaded.

You wrote what you wrote, and we all can see it. I’d wager that @Fearless Tower and myself were not the only two that interpreted your message as such. Admit your wronging and move on. It happens to the best of us every now and then.
 
Rynab, there are at least two kinds of dishonesty, one the common kind where people steal money or assets or shoplift or cheat seniors out of their savings.
Then there is another even more common kind of dishonesty, that we might call intellectual dishonesty. This is simply when your word means nothing, such as when you intentionally distort or even directly misquote what someone wrote or said. I don't understand why any pilot would want to try to make a case AGAINST prop safety, but to do it by lying about what I wrote reflects on the lack of integrity from you two, And it's not a small thing, whether a gun is loaded or not. In your response above you are doing much the same thing, since I never wrote or even claimed to be a "gun connoisseur" though you didn't have that as a direct quote.
In a larger more serious case, a parent of a murdered child at Sandy Hook just won a $450,000 court judgement against a low life who claimed he the shootings never happened but were staged by Obama administration. In big cases there are laws against libel or slander, the definition is if you knowingly say or write something false.
And you can interpret any way you want, or you could even try to consider the meaning intended by I or any other writer rather than try to pick apart the wording. Since you and "fearless" write under an alias. I don't know who you are or if you have some personal gripe. But I was surprised if you wrote that we should take pictures of kids leaning on props. What, you didn't really write that? Works both ways doesn't it?
 
If you’re gonna fire a loaded gun through a spinning prop, you better have the timing down real good. ;)
 
My name is Justin and I worked under my prop today.....

Serious thought about this post as I was checking something on my fuel servo. Given the horizontal positioning and my removable scoop, I literally am bent under the prop... if it was to spin my head would be removed. Here’s my mental checklist

Mags - Off, keys removed
Fuel - Off
Mixture - Cut out
Prop - Adjusted while standing and rotate it as if it’s ready to spin

I do the exact same thing before putting a tow bar on to put the plane in the hangar and it’s served me well. This would have not benefited the OPs mentioned case. I wasn’t there but to me it sounded as if he tried to taxi, realized the wheel chalk was in place and send his wife out to fetch, not wanting to shut down. Why? I have no clue, maybe he didn’t like hot starts, maybe he didn’t like his wife, maybe they played weird games with loaded guns... whatever the case is, if you’re ever in a similar predicament then go ahead and shut down your engine. Greatly remove the risk of your passenger getting injured and going pirate.
 
If you think every person who ever walked into a prop was "a special kind of dumb" maybe you've never been around a busy ramp flight deck.
323182-I-ENO51-826.jpg

(Navy photo)

Nauga,
who knows sometimes the holes in the Swiss cheese line up
 
I recall reading on one historic flight off a carrier that a crewman slipped into a prop just before the group was to takeoff. I am not sure, but think this was the first RAF flight with land Spitfires off the carrier Wasp to reinforce Malta. If not that, then I think it was the Doolittle raid of B-25s off the Hornet. That does not look like anywhere I'd want to be,which is why I'm glad I was in the Air Force on nice dry land.
 
There's been carrier guys sucked into jet intakes as well. One got lodged in an A-6 first stage and managed to survive.
 
I saw it clearly and it seems so improbable that even now I cant really believe it. There was a very clear video of a crewman sucked into a jet intake on the side of the plane, could have been an A-6, not sure. It happened in a second and there was a flash of light and HE CAME OUT THE BACK OF THE ENGINE AND WAS ALIVE AND IN ONE PIECE !!
 
OkieAviator said:
My name is Justin and I worked under my prop today.....

Serious thought about this post as I was checking something on my fuel servo. Given the horizontal positioning and my removable scoop, I literally am bent under the prop... if it was to spin my head would be removed. Here’s my mental checklist

Mags - Off, keys removed
Fuel - Off
Mixture - Cut out
Prop - Adjusted while standing and rotate it as if it’s ready to spin

I do the exact same thing before putting a tow bar on to put the plane in the hangar and it’s served me well. This would have not benefited the OPs mentioned case. I wasn’t there but to me it sounded as if he tried to taxi, realized the wheel chalk was in place and send his wife out to fetch, not wanting to shut down. Why? I have no clue, maybe he didn’t like hot starts, maybe he didn’t like his wife, maybe they played weird games with loaded guns... whatever the case is, if you’re ever in a similar predicament then go ahead and shut down your engine. Greatly remove the risk of your passenger getting injured and going pirate.
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I think every pilot here probably gets into the prop arc of the airplane they are about to fly every time they fly. It's part of a proper preflight ( looking for nicks on props, checking alternator belts, checking a landing light). The key to doing it safely is to make sure the engine isn't running and being sure the safety issues are addressed every time. Letting a passenger out, or getting out of a running airplane are on my no do list.
 
Bill Greenwood said:
I saw it clearly and it seems so improbable that even now I cant really believe it. There was a very clear video of a crewman sucked into a jet intake on the side of the plane, could have been an A-6, not sure. It happened in a second and there was a flash of light and HE CAME OUT THE BACK OF THE ENGINE AND WAS ALIVE AND IN ONE PIECE !!
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He actually didn’t go through the engine, his helmet and clothes did, but if you watch the video, you see him come back out of the intake.
 
Bill Greenwood said:
I saw it clearly and it seems so improbable that even now I cant really believe it. There was a very clear video of a crewman sucked into a jet intake on the side of the plane, could have been an A-6, not sure. It happened in a second and there was a flash of light and HE CAME OUT THE BACK OF THE ENGINE AND WAS ALIVE AND IN ONE PIECE !!
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Um.....no. He didn't come out the back of the engine.
 
Bill Greenwood said:
I saw it clearly and it seems so improbable that even now I cant really believe it. There was a very clear video of a crewman sucked into a jet intake on the side of the plane, could have been an A-6, not sure. It happened in a second and there was a flash of light and HE CAME OUT THE BACK OF THE ENGINE AND WAS ALIVE AND IN ONE PIECE !!
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As Dave said, he didn’t get pulled through the engine. His helmet got ripped off his head and essentially jammed the blades. There’s a full documentary on it.
 
I once had to jump the intake of an F-16 that had once ingested a human. Although the engine was changed and it had flown several hours since the incident, there were still spiral boot marks inside the intake all the way to the engine. Sort of creepy.
 
Maybe there is more than one incident that has been shown on video. It has been a few years. but I recall how fast it happened, one sec he's standing there and next hes flying into the intake. There is a flash of light and it looks like he comes out the back. You sure cant see him anymore in front , his feet aren't sticking out. I am sure ok somewhat sure that something comes out the back of the engine and doesn't just look like body parts. I thought at the time, seems impossible but I even think they said he lived. As I recall it was the left engine, not sure of the plane, maybe A-6.
 
Bill Greenwood said:
Maybe there is more than one incident that has been shown on video. It has been a few years. but I recall how fast it happened, one sec he's standing there and next hes flying into the intake. There is a flash of light and it looks like he comes out the back. You sure cant see him anymore in front , his feet aren't sticking out. I am sure ok somewhat sure that something comes out the back of the engine and doesn't just look like body parts. I thought at the time, seems impossible but I even think they said he lived. As I recall it was the left engine, not sure of the plane, maybe A-6.
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Bill, we’re all talking about the same video. The flash you see is the ingestion of the clothes and parts of the helmet that got sheared off. There’s a whole documentary on it and it’s a video that’s been around for years.
 
Yes, Ryan that's the one I saw, I recall the plane and now that it was even dark. I thought at the time they said he lived, but it just seems impossible, that he would not have cuts or broken bones.

By the way, Earl Ketchen was my instructor in "83 for high performance checkout and his background was Navy and flying A-6s. He was a type A guy, but freely admits that his first combat mission was to fly off the carrier at night into imc weather to N Vietnam and to bomb the Ho Chi Min trail and he was scared to death. He flew 65 missions.
 
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