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kkinney
Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 42
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 Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 6:34 pm Post subject: "Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?" |
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(This quote courtesy of Dave Gallagher.)
As you've all seen from the photos, I landed off-field Saturday morning.
I was conducting a routine test flight and was about 1/3 way through my test script. I got a low oil pressure reading and smoke in the cockpit.
I throttled to idle, hit best glide speed and turned toward the airport. I was hoping I could make it.
The CO detector was nearly black, so I closed cabin heat and opened both vents.
The engine stopped, I picked a field and turned toward it.
Seeing I was going to overshoot the first field, I chose another. I was skating on the edge of a stall at 50-100 feet. It took all my determination not to stretch the glide. I had to grit my teeth and pushed the stick forward to speed up.
This meant I scrubbed two sets of trees and took down a woven wire fence.
The nose wheel snagged the top 3 strands. This probably when the nose gear collapsed and then I slid about 40 feet before stopping.
The left wingtip dragged. The gear must have taken a pretty serious hit as the stainless brake drain valve snapped off. The rear tie-down hook was bent backwards. The transponder antenna just aft of the main gear was bent backwards. The rudder had wrinkles showing it had impacted.
There was no fuel leakage. I'm glad as I have (had) two gascolators just in hanging down in front of the main gear.
The firewall was collapsed rearwards at the bottom, the nose wheel bent backwards and twisted. Leading edges of wings & stabilizer has small dents. The left wing had a large dent in the tank area that matched up with a flattened steel post.
A large shallow crease formed along the left side of the fuse between the root and aft wing connector. This indicated vertical compression, horizontal stretching or both.
Further examination today showed buckling in both the bottom crosspieces aft of the seats. There was more buckling near the rear attach point on the left side, probably because the left tip dragged.
The cause? A split oil cooler return hose near the barbed connection.
The cause of the split? I used the 43.13 bend radius of 4 inches. I did not take into account that it was more of a compound curve rather than a simple one and should have used a larger bend radius.
With the new style oil cooler connectors and stainless hose, this probably wouldn't have happened.
The FAA has classed this as an accident rather than incident as there was damage to the firewall. Aside from that, I'm told there is likely to be no further FAA action.
I'm learning all about aviation insurance claims. If anyone has any advice on that, I'd love to hear it.
Regards,
Kevin Kinney
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DaveG601XL
Joined: 27 Oct 2006
Posts: 351
Location: Cincinnati, Oh
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| Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 3:18 am Post subject: Re: "Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?&qu |
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Kevin, all things considered, it was a great landing, you walked away.
Here is my part of the story.
Kevin called me early Saturday morning and I heard the dreaded words, "Dave, I lost oil pressure and crashed into a field." The lump in my throat was eased only by the fact that Kevin was telling me in his own voice. All he knew was that he was a little north-east of the airport we both fly out of. I could not get much more out of him as the police were rolling up and he had to go. Being a Firefighter in the same county I turned my radio on and found out which Fire/EMS department was arriving on the scene so at least I knew which township Kevin was in. From there I called our EAA chapter's Tech Counselor, Gary Collins, and gave him what little information I knew. Gary asked what he could do to help and I told him to start lining up a trailer.
Through my fire department contacts, I was able to get the address Kevin was at. I arrived right after the ambulance left as Kevin did not require any medical treatment. The State Police were still there and the first of many news vans had pulled up. It was great to see Kevin walking around, and laughing, with the trooper. The FAA had deferred the scene investigation to the police and they wrapped up their paperwork rather quickly. The airplane was already released to Kevin when I arrived.
We found some wood blocks and cribbed up the firewall in order to get the airplane's nose out of the dirt. With the bottom cowling off, we quickly found the cause of the oil loss, a split hose. As Kevin stated, his older model Jabiru had the oil cooler with barbed connections. The new style coolers have threaded connections that allow the use of AN fittings and over-braid hose. I highly recommend anyone using the older cooler with barbed connections review their installation and strongly consider updating it.
I drove Kevin to the airport and we picked up a bunch of tools and fuel cans. We also heard from Gary that he located a trailer and he launched off our way. I commend Kevin for his calm demeanor during all of this. I would have been an emotional wreck. We had the fuel drained out and the wings of fairly quickly and waited for the trailer to arrive. Luckily, the field was not too wet and had easy access from the farm's driveway. The Zodiac's main gear is wider than any typical trailers so Gary brought several long 2x4's with. We secured them to the trailer bed with one end sticking over the side about 1.5 feet. Fortunately the Zodiac fuselage is not too heavy and four of us were able to man-handle the fuselage on the trailer. After the short drive to the airport, we returned with a wing cradle and had everything cleared out of the field.
Kevin commented afterwards that when he called me he did not expect me to have to drop what I was doing and come help out. All I could say was that we are an aviation "community" and that nobody in this scenario hesitated even a second to jump on board to help a fellow pilot out of a jam.
Hope to see you flying again soon!
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David Gallagher
Cincinnati, OH area |
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aprazer
Joined: 24 Nov 2006
Posts: 93
Location: Boise, Idaho
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| Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2010 2:38 pm Post subject: Re: "Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?&qu |
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Kevin,
Thanks for sharing the details about your accident with us.
I'm glad that you were able to walk away from it, but I am sorry that your bird will be out of commission for a while.
If you need anything, let us know.
Mack
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The poh-oh-unemployed farm boy from Idaho |
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