Towbar Prop Strike

jimhorner said:
Very good advice. My plane’s former owner pulled the plane out one night with his power tow.

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Right after he got it out of the hangar, he got a call on his cell phone. After the 30 minute call, he got in the plane and fired it up. Evidently the tug was launched over the hangar. A complete engine overhaul and propeller replacement was required. Unfortunately for me, the crankcase wasn’t replaced and had no obvious damage.

At my annual this year, my mechanic sent me the picture below showing a non-repairable crack in the crankcase. We believe that the crankcase was probably weakend by the prop strike, alhough there’s no way to be sure. Nothing ever showed up on the previous 7 annuals. Gonna cost me 40+ K$ for a new engine.

Yeah, NEVER walk away with a tug or towbar attached to the plane. It can get expensive quickly.

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Bummer. Seems you took it better than I would have.
 
As I've shared here before:

timwinters said:
I picked this tip up numerous years ago on another board...probably CPA...

If you have a collapsible towbar with a pin, then put the pin on your plane's key ring and leave it there.

That way, when you're using the towbar your keys are attached to it and thus you didn't leave a mag switch on.

And if your starting your airplane, your towbar pin is hanging from the ignition switch which pretty much assures that the towbar isn't still on your nose wheel.

I haven't heard of a better system than that one. But, of course, it only works with collapsible towbars.
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Many years ago I had a similar experience, when I taxied the wing of a friend's airplane into a light pole while trying to park it at a tiedown, because I was fixated on avoiding the tiedown chains so as not to cause a prop strike and didn't realize how close the poles were to the ramp. Luckily I was inching forward very slowly so none of the damage to the wing was structural, but the reskin job cost over $2000. The owner didn't involve the insurance company, to avoid an increase in premiums, so I paid for every penny myself. A hard lesson in situational awareness, but a good one.

OP, your situation is somewhat tougher because the cost of complying with the regs is going to be quite a bit higher, but if you do the right thing and don't try to avoid responsibility (which it doesn't seem you are trying to do at all), then you still have a long flying career ahead of you. Other than the financial setback, I don't see any reason why you need to abandon your ambitions to become a professional pilot. I didn't have any such ambitions, but I'm still flying, and yes, the owner of the airplane I banged up and I are still good friends.
 
I've done two of these this year. The first was in January and was a Cherokee 140 with O-320. The damage to the prop was minimal and was dressed out but since it was still a prop strike, had to comply with AD 2004-10-14. You are required to inspect the crankshaft gear. This did not require removing the engine. Labor and materials under $2K (well under). The second, I just completed. Fellow hit a parked car at idle. American Yankee with O-235. Prop was damaged and was replaced with a serviceable unit, cost under $1000. Engine crank gear inspection IAW the AD required engine removal due to lack of space. Labor and materials under $2k; total with used prop under $3k.
 
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alfadog said:
I've done two of these this year. The first was in January and was a Cherokee 140 with O-320. The damage to the prop was minimal and was dressed out but since it was still a prop strike, had to comply with AD 2004-10-14. You are required to inspect the crankshaft gear. This did not require removing the engine. Labor and materials under $2K (well under). The second, I just completed. Fellow hit a parked car at idle. American Yankee with O-235. Prop was damaged and was replaced with a serviceable unit, cost under $1000. Engine crank gear inspection IAW the AD required engine removal due to lack of space. Labor and materials under $2k.
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Thank you for the reasoned addition. Much too much fear mongering on the R/R side of these things in this thread. It's almost a predisposition to hyperbolize in order to justify their own inclination for high dollar bottom overhauls. My Arrow had a cracked case at 1000SMOH. The case was repaired, internals updated, and no bottom overhaul listed. Worked out for the sellers too because I wasn't gonna pay a premium for an overhauled engine on the cosmetics of the tin can they were bolting the engine to. Win-win for both parties. Cheaper as you note (more expensive due to the weld job and the physical removal, but still significantly less than an overhaul), and so far so good, knock on wood.
 
alfadog said:
I've done two of these this year. The first was in January and was a Cherokee 140 with O-320. The damage to the prop was minimal and was dressed out but since it was still a prop strike, had to comply with AD 2004-10-14. You are required to inspect the crankshaft gear. This did not require removing the engine. Labor and materials under $2K (well under). The second, I just completed. Fellow hit a parked car at idle. American Yankee with O-235. Prop was damaged and was replaced with a serviceable unit, cost under $1000. Engine crank gear inspection IAW the AD required engine removal due to lack of space. Labor and materials under $2k.
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How the hell do you taxi an airplane into a car....
 
alfadog said:
I've done two of these this year. The first was in January and was a Cherokee 140 with O-320. The damage to the prop was minimal and was dressed out but since it was still a prop strike, had to comply with AD 2004-10-14. You are required to inspect the crankshaft gear. This did not require removing the engine. Labor and materials under $2K (well under). The second, I just completed. Fellow hit a parked car at idle. American Yankee with O-235. Prop was damaged and was replaced with a serviceable unit, cost under $1000. Engine crank gear inspection IAW the AD required engine removal due to lack of space. Labor and materials under $2k.
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Good to hear that the repair and required inspections can be under $2K. I hope the OP's case is as inexpensively addressed.
 
One of the advantages of a wooden prop is that in a tip strike like the OP's towbar incident the material acts like a fuse and the tip turns into splinters, but the engine rarely requires a teardown. A new wooden prop is a lot cheaper than an engine teardown and possibly a new crankshaft.

Metal props aren't as forgiving.

Why a wooden prop?

I like Tim's idea of putting the towbar pin on your key ring.
 
ktup-flyer said:
How the hell do you taxi an airplane into a car....
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The American Yankee has a castering nosewheel and only differential braking to steer. The pilot was taxing down the hanger row and had no right brake when he went to apply brakes. The aircraft swerved hard and he pulled the mixture. Was unable to prevent hitting a parked car once it started to swerve. Obviously other things could have been done earlier but at that point not much but finish the ride.
 
Sinistar said:
Try form a new habit...never have the tow bar attached when it isn't in your hand...no matter how tempting...if you need to walk away take it with you.
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This. Like never take off without having had looking into or dipping the gas tanks. Period. No exceptions. Pre takeoff checklists. Etc. Period. No exceptions. Believe in it and commit to it so it becomes as natural as breathing.
 
azure said:
Good to hear that the repair and required inspections can be under $2K. I hope the OP's case is as inexpensively addressed.
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As an owner, you can decide not to comply with the service bulletin and to skip the teardown. Then the only thing that is mandatory (via AD) is the inspection of the accessory drive sprocket and repair/replacement of the prop.
The OP was in a rental plane. Unless the owner/FBO feels really charitable, it's going to require a teardown.
 
My partner had a prop strike in the C206. I was surprised how much of the expense was covered by insurance, and when all was said and done we ended up with a zero time engine for about 25% of the cost if overhauled from normal use. It's a pretty good deal with a high time engine. For a new engine, not so much.
 
ktup-flyer said:
How the hell do you taxi an airplane into a car....
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Not exactly while taxiing, but came VERY close to having my Sky Arrow roll into my Honda Element after engine start.

I’m a religious checklist user, but on that occasion it seemed silly to do so - I was just firing up the engine using jumper cables to my car. But by not using a checklist, I had neglected to set the parking brake - which is especially important in a plane with finger brakes. Got to the brakes just in tptime. Of course, with a pusher my prop and engine were safe, but I still barely avoided composite damage to the plane and sheet metal damage to the car.

Lesson learned.
 
You got a lot of good advice here. Just passing on my sympathy. Hang in there, and nobody got hurt!
 
I fell victim to this once. Taxiing the AA-1A I heard a funny scraping noise. It stopped for just a second right before the nose gear hit a bump.
I pulled the mixture, and didn't touch the brakes until the prop had stopped. I got out, placed the towbar in the aft glove-box (baggage compartment), restarted, and proceeded normally.

I was LUCKY - no prop strike.

I don't think the OP will EVER forget to stow/remove the towbar after his incident.
 
JPA said:
I fell victim to this once. Taxiing the AA-1A I heard a funny scraping noise. It stopped for just a second right before the nose gear hit a bump.
I pulled the mixture, and didn't touch the brakes until the prop had stopped. I got out, placed the towbar in the aft glove-box (baggage compartment), restarted, and proceeded normally.

I was LUCKY - no prop strike.

I don't think the OP will EVER forget to stow/remove the towbar after his incident.
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I was taxiing the red Yankee to 9L at KTMB and felt/heard a something. Almost a bump. Told tower I need to pull over and check things out. Everything looked good so launched. Turned out the vacuum pump had failed.
 
Yeah, I had a near miss in this department. Was breaking in a new instructor while working on my PPL, on a plane I had just bought in to a partnership on. Pulled the plane out of the hangar after preflight, didn't remove the tow bar. After the instructor arrived, we did a quick ground lesson, then hopped in the plane. Somebody else on the field flagged us down during our taxi. Ground a nice flat spot on the tow bar, but it luckily never popped up in to the blade.

Not that it mattered much. About a month later, we had to OH the engine because of corrosion on the camshaft anyway.
 
I’m in claims. Fixed pitch will run you about 8k depending from where. IRAN(inspect and repair as necessary) inspection on the engine will run around $10-12K. Labor for the r&r will be about 3-4K. Insurance should pick it up 100%. I seen 10 of these claims a week, so don’t feel too bad. Hell I see 20k hour skygod airline pilots tip their personal RVs taildragger up on the nose or forget to lower gear.

Report it to your insurer, and do it the right way. You can try just replacing the prop, but your IA may not want to sign off the annual until the inspection has been done per the SB, to cover his @ss, which is understandable. In reality, there is no rhyme or reason to what causes internal damage. I’ve had full power high speed gear collapse propstrikes that did nothing to the engine, and props that nicked rocks which caused crankshaft flange cracks. You may want to put the 10k towards an overhaul. If you are close to TBO there may be a lot of wear and tear once they open it up and insurance doesn’t cover that.

Don’t bother reporting it to NTSB. Trust me when I say they couldn’t care less. Unless there is a smoking crater with serious injuries or bodies, they rather not deal with it since they have many many smoking craters with bodies they are already dealing with. Their Give-a-f&*k chart goes-
1.Airline crash
2. Any fatal jet/turbine helo crash
3. Jet crash with injuries
4. Jet incident(overruns, excursions) with no injuries
5. Piston crash with multiple fatal
6. Piston crash with injuries
7. Piston crash no injuries
8. Piston incident of any sort on the ground

Even on some piston crashes with injuries they will send an FAA guy out instead of traveling themselves.
 
Geosync said:
I’m in claims. Fixed pitch will run you about 8k depending from where. IRAN(inspect and repair as necessary) inspection on the engine will run around $10-12K. Labor for the r&r will be about 3-4K. Insurance should pick it up 100%. I seen 10 of these claims a week, so don’t feel too bad. Hell I see 20k hour skygod airline pilots tip their personal RVs taildragger up on the nose or forget to lower gear.

Report it to your insurer, and do it the right way. You can try just replacing the prop, but your IA may not want to sign off the annual until the inspection has been done per the SB, to cover his @ss, which is understandable. In reality, there is no rhyme or reason to what causes internal damage. I’ve had full power high speed gear collapse propstrikes that did nothing to the engine, and props that nicked rocks which caused crankshaft flange cracks. You may want to put the 10k towards an overhaul. If you are close to TBO there may be a lot of wear and tear once they open it up and insurance doesn’t cover that.

Don’t bother reporting it to NTSB. Trust me when I say they couldn’t care less. Unless there is a smoking crater with serious injuries or bodies, they rather not deal with it since they have many many smoking craters with bodies they are already dealing with. Their Give-a-f&*k chart goes-
1.Airline crash
2. Any fatal jet/turbine helo crash
3. Jet crash with injuries
4. Jet incident(overruns, excursions) with no injuries
5. Piston crash with multiple fatal
6. Piston crash with injuries
7. Piston crash no injuries
8. Piston incident of any sort on the ground

Even on some piston crashes with injuries they will send an FAA guy out instead of traveling themselves.
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Is it reasonable to assume the OP's insurance premium will go up and if so, significantly?
 
First time flight after 43 years . CFI had me pick the tow bar off the floor . Instructions were "Hand dosen't leave tow bar till its back on hanger floor" Hook it to front wheel pull C150 out of hanger , remove tow bar, place back on centerline in hanger. Hand never leaves tow bar for no reason till its back on floor. Same way pushing back in hanger . Hand on tow bar till its removed and placed on floor . Quite adamant about that . Plus tales of those who didn't remember to keep hand on tow bar.
 
Tow bar is always in a location I can visually check before engine start.

This brings up the question of a check list. Do you use a check list and verify every step, or do you just read it without verification.? A mental check list like GUMPS, can help if you use them every time you fly.

For me:
G= Gas, switch to tank with most fuel
U=Under carriage, fixed gear, so yes brakes, tires, tow bar are happy
M=Mixture set
P=Fixed pitch prop, still attached..:rolleyes: Or Position, DG set, position on field set/altimeter
S=Switches, radio, transponder, fuel pump, lights, ... are happy
 
Virtually all insurance policies cover tear-down. Only question here is one of subrogation against your personal insurance/assets.

First thing I learned as an owner is that the towbar stays in the hangar. It doesn't go in the plane, ever. (Airports have towbars.) When the plane is pushed back, the towbar stays attached on the floor. When the plane comes out, the towbar is immediately removed at placed in the hangar in its designated spot. Nothing is allowed to interrupt the towbar sequence. It doesn't come out of my hand until in the hangar. In addition, I start my preflight at the right wing drains. This requires me to circle the plane twice to complete the preflight tasks and enter the plane on the pilots side. If for some crazy reason the towbar was still attached, I would have to trip over it twice to leave it attached. It's worked for me. The preflight procedure should be similar to the "sterile cockpit" for approach and landing. Anything that interrupts you can lead to a critical step getting missed.

It does happen however. More than once, we have called out to a local pilot on CTAF to stop and remove their towbar while taxiing for takeoff. Fortunately, the towbars didn't jump up during (a rather long) taxi.

So sorry it happened to you. Nothing to do but move on, and learn from the experience. Importantly, nobody was hurt.
 
During my instrument training, I was in the runup area when I see a Cherokee taxi towards the runup. As he got closer, and made the turn to get next to me, it became obvious his tow-bar was still attached.

The FBO must have just (over)filled the nose strut, as the Piper type don't sag and stick straight out. He had very little clearance. The instructor in that aircraft must have been instructing heavily, as he didn't hear me asking ground to relay that their bar was attached, and it took ground two tries to get their attention.

That would have been an interesting landing if they had managed to take off with it.
 
I've got the old style Piper towbar for my Cherokee.. two little curved fingers, and no spring clamp. If you don't hold the towbar up at an angle, it slips out when you DON'T want it to. Hate it. On the other hand... there's no way it would stay attached if it ever WAS left out. Never have, and always check it before AND after preflighting. Guess this is about the only reason in favor of this lame style towbar.
 
MuseChaser said:
I've got the old style Piper towbar for my Cherokee.. two little curved fingers, and no spring clamp. If you don't hold the towbar up at an angle, it slips out when you DON'T want it to. Hate it.
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On the other hand, I love mine. I know that I will NEVER have to worry about leaving the tow bar attached, because if I let it go, it falls off onto the ground. I've never had much difficulty using it.

Tim
 
chemgeek said:
First thing I learned as an owner is that the towbar stays in the hangar. It doesn't go in the plane, ever. (Airports have towbars.)
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This might work if you only ever fly to normal airports, and stay in the USA. Good luck finding a tow bar at a nice remote grass strip, or pretty much any foreign airport!
 
HumbleGuest said:
I am a 100 hour private pilot who just experienced his first incident today. I've flown this rental Piper Archer 6 times and has taken it for many XCs, but today, I let my extreme excitement to demonstrate a class B transition to my newly-minted private pilot friend (and his friend) distract me as I was preflighting and, in act of complacency, I foolishly spun up the plane with the tow bar still attached to the nose-wheel.

Once I heard an abnormal, metallic-sounding noise, I immediately pulled back the mixture and shut everything down in the plane; I instantly knew what I screwed up on. When I got out, I noticed that only the tips of the two-blade propeller were damaged with one of them slightly shaven off and the other one bent, though they are still quite noticeable. The owner came out and didn't seem too bent up about the situation and even offered me one of his other plane for me to fly, but I felt extremely incompetent, so I decided to simply call it a day.

LESSON TO EVERYONE: Do another quick full walk-around of the aircraft after you complete everything on the preflight checklist!

My biggest question to the community is, what is the average of a complete replacement of a fixed-pitch propeller? I already gave the owner a hefty deposit. And is it required to be disclosed to the NTSB (already read NTSB 830 and believe it is not a disclosable incident)?

I believe the propeller that I damaged is a Sensenich 76EM8S5. I believe the engine may have to be inspected too since sudden stoppages caused by a prop strike could have potentially damaged it, but I didn't notice any drop in RPMs, although it may have been too quick for me to notice. The prop appeared to spin fine right after it hit the tow-bar.
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Engine needs a teardown, not just an inspection.
 
GRG55 said:
Accidents like this are always a bummer.

I have a longstanding habit of doing one final, complete circuit of the airplane just before I get in. I check for:
  • both oil filler doors are latched;
  • both fuel drain doors are latched;
  • all four fuel caps are secure and locked down;
  • both baggage doors are properly latched and the keys out of the locks;
  • nothing has been left sitting on any of the horizontal surfaces;
  • no wheel chocks left to remove.
All are redundant with pre-flight steps, but you just never know when you might be distracted/interrupted and leave some step like checking the oil or sumping the fuel tanks not quite complete with the lid unsecured.
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A wise old hand told me to do this, he calls it a "suicide prevention check".
 
Rgbeard said:
I realize this is late for the OP, but maybe not too late for someone reading this. All this stuff about the 'final walk around the airplane', and other good advice that you read here, has a tendency to go out-the-window when something out-of-the-ordinary is happening.

I.E.

You show up a little late for your flight, and want to hasten your preflight to get out on time.
You're taking your (______) up for his/her first flight.
You get a phone call, and take it, during preflight.
Your passenger asks you a question and it interrupts your preflight flow.

If you sense any of these things happening, don't speed-up. SLOW DOWN.

Preflight your airplane as if someone loves you and wants you home at the end of the day.
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Such a great post. Remember, there's no such thing as an emergency takeoff.

And if I read the OP correctly, his insurance only covers $1k of the owner's deductible, BUT the renter is responsible for all damages, i.e. this isn't going on the owner's insurance.

Really bummed for the OP, anyone can make a mistake. I do thank him for sharing the lesson learned.
 
Katamarino said:
This might work if you only ever fly to normal airports, and stay in the USA. Good luck finding a tow bar at a nice remote grass strip, or pretty much any foreign airport!
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Not even all "normal" airports have tow bars. He must only fly into D C or B airports with 24/7 FBOs. I havent seen a public use towbar at a majority (any??) of the self serve/park airports Ive flown into. Certainly not at the fuel pumps or tie downs. But Ive only flown to 48 states, so I dont have that much experience with different airports.
 
HumbleGuest said:
The rental contract that I signed with the owner said that the renter (me) is responsible for all damages that occur in his/her (my) possession and that the owner's insurance deductible is the renter's (my) responsibility.
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mryan75 said:
Such a great post. Remember, there's no such thing as an emergency takeoff.

And if I read the OP correctly, his insurance only covers $1k of the owner's deductible, BUT the renter is responsible for all damages, i.e. this isn't going on the owner's insurance.

Really bummed for the OP, anyone can make a mistake. I do thank him for sharing the lesson learned.
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I think you did read that wrong. Looks like it will go on the owner's insurance.

If I were an owner that rented anything to anyone, and I'm not, I would absolutely carry insurance to protect myself and that which is being rented out. Too many bloodless turnips to just expect you will be made whole again from their finances alone.

Fiveslide
Very little blood in this turnip.
 
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