While descending toward the airport in Sylmar, California, the private pilot made a “mayday” call and reported to air traffic control that he had “no throttle, no engine at all.”
Witnesses saw the Beech A36TC flying about 30 to 40 feet above ground level when it turned and descended into a flat, open field adjacent to a highway. The pilot was killed in the crash.
An examination of the wreckage revealed that the plane likely stalled and hit the terrain in a nose and left-wing low attitude.
Post-accident examination did not reveal any anomalies with the flight controls that would have precluded normal operation.
The examination also did not reveal any pre-impact anomalies that would have precluded the production of rated engine power and fuel was onboard.
Although impact damage precluded a test run of the engine, teardown examination revealed no anomalies with the engine or its internal components. The reason for the loss of engine power could not be determined based on the available information.
Probable cause: The pilot’s failure to maintain airplane control on approach to a relatively benign emergency landing area following a total loss of engine power for reasons that could not be determined based on the available information.
NTSB Identification: WPR18FA219
This August 2018 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
You’ll find a person’s true character when the adversity is real and it comes down to the wire.
Playing on a simulator, or any training regiment, doesn’t say what someone will do at night caught in 3500 fpm drafts over mountains.
During biennials I’m asked the pull the nose up to replicate a departure stall. I comply but question why i would have an aircraft in that position when I know it will result in a stall. Same mental acuity tells me in an off field landing the hull is to be used to it’s best svail to protect me, fly it to the ground…which is part of the training.
After reading the whole set of write-ups using the links, the thing that interested me was, they noted that the mags turned with the engine. But they did not check them to see if they were producing spark. If the mags had failed in flight… it is interesting when the prop is turning and you move the throttle and nothing happens, no increase/decrease in noise or power. It is rather unsettling.
Mags do fail in flight. And even though they may be turning, they may not produce spark for some reason. N2920Q is an example. Dual Mag failure in flight within 100 hours of overhaul (engine and mags). Maybe, by now, the NTSB has published this one.
And I agree with Wild Bill. Teaching the CPL 180 precision engine out landing during PP training is a good thing. Also doing the same where there is a grass airport is an excellent thing for them to experience.
There’s a major gap in our training. We don’t teach how to actually land an airplane once the engine quits. This pilot stalled it in over a landing site that should have been eminently survivable, probably never made a power off approach in that aircraft until it was the only approach he could make. I’ll bet every engine out he did in training ended in a go around once they “had the field”. We should teach engine out emergencies all the way to landing. Maybe even shut the engine down when we know we’re inside gliding range. A power loss shouldn’t result in a fatality.
Yes – there is often resistance to power off landings in these higher performance airplanes for fear of shock cooling the engine. These aircraft descend at steeper angles power off so if the pilot maneuvers similar to how it was done in a lighter trainer, it is easy to get into the trap of trying to stretch the glide. One option to avoid engine problems is to leave in enough power to avoid excessive cooling and use the flaps to establish and simulate a full power off descent angle for that model.