182 – Plane Lands in Farm Field After Engine Failure

Airplane Owner Maintenance - By Dean Showalter

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Now for the engine failure story:

They got stopped about 35 yards before the trees!

It appears they kept flying the airplane with an oil pressure problem, and the engine finally failed catastrophically.

I took a trip with my fellow A&P, Kenneth, and we ended up removing the wings and sending the airplane home to Virginia on a trailer. Check it out:

Before we removed the wings, we drained a little more than 1 quart of oil from the sump (it’s an 8 quart engine,) and we removed the oil suction screen, which had A LOT of metal in it. Kenneth also noted that the #1 piston was not moving in the cylinder when we rotated the prop… oh, and the first time we rotated the prop, we could hear metal pieces falling down through the engine… not a good thing!

There was no obvious external damage visible on the engine… the internal damage was a whole different story! (The only strange thing was the oil dipstick was missing.)

The whole ordeal has been challenging to figure out, but the engine data from the JPI-830 engine monitor has been helpful.

After observing the engine data on a computer screen, it’s obvious there was a big problem with low oil pressure when the aircraft departed on the flight that would end in a farm field.

It’s been a crazy busy week after returning home, and yesterday, I finally had time to remove cylinder #1 from the engine, but it would not come off! How frustrating!

We think the steel cylinder barrel was peened and deformed inside the crankcase, which won’t let it come out.

So this morning, I removed the oil sump, and it was full of all kinds of interesting stuff… the exhaust lifter, which was in amazingly good condition… pieces of the connecting rod that came off the crankshaft journal… and other pieces of debris.

That tube at the end of the lifter is the oil suction tube that goes up to the oil suction screen and from there to the oil filter.

So there’s the story… so far.

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Also mentioned in this episode:

Troy Schlote sent me an encouraging email and let me know he’s trying to get the word out about the new location of AeroSport, LLC in Florida.

If any of you need light sport maintenance, Rotax maintenance, or GA maintenance in the Deland, Florida area, be sure to stop in and meet Troy.

Troy Schlote Director of Maintenance A&P / IA AeroSport, LLC www.fly-aerosport.com T: [phone] DeLand Municipal Airport (KDED) 921 Biscayne Blvd, Hangar E14 DeLand, FL 32724

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