April accident Hawaii

AKBill

AKBill

En-Route
Joined
Nov 29, 2014
Messages
3,735
Location
Juneau, AK
Display Name
Display name:
AKBill
Just heard about an accident in Hawaii April 2015. My neighbor's business partners wife was in an accident at Hilo airport Hawaii.

I was told a student an instructor and a passenger were injured when there C-172 lost engine power after takeoff. The instructor turned the plane back to the runway but the plane impacted the ground with force to severely injure everyone on board.

One paralyzed from the waste down, one blinded from impact with dash.

Very sad to here. I was told water in fuel was cause for engine failure, don't know the real story. Very sad.
 
This accident is a reminder to me to follow my most recent CFI's advice (i've been learning tailwheel this past year): dont bother with touch and goes, you dont stop flying a plane until the plane is at a full stop. Plus, it only ads a few tenths of an hour to the hobbs to taxi around anyway.
 
While I guess a full stop MIGHT have still gotten water into the fuel, the real lesson here is not to avoid T&Gs (at least for this reason), but to sump ALL the water out, including shaking the wings, and think twice about flying an aircraft for which "a lot" of water had to be removed.

That water didn't get into the tanks while airborne.
 
The NTSB report indicates a lot of water was found in the fuel system, which basically means the fuel wasn't really properly sumped and tested before flying. That much water doesn't just hide somewhere in the tanks and then materialze later.

The fact that they were draining a ton of water from the tanks before flight should have also been a big red flag. Don't see how the touch and go was a factor here.

This NTSB report will surely start with the "Pilot's failure to..." phraseology.
 
Last edited:
I agree with the issue of not enough sumping of the water. I saw the same problem in a cessna 120 after a heavy rain. I must have pulled off about 6 ounces. The instructor and I (it was his plane) kept draining until all we saw was blue. It was the first time in my short experience (170 hours) of seeing what water in fuel looked like, and I will never forget it. By the way, there were still a few drops of water in the sumped fuel the next day, so I think it is possible for water to hide in tanks.

My point about the full stop landing philosophy is that perhaps, after the heavy slipping, the engine would have quit on the the ground instead of in the air. It doesn't excuse the decision making process before the plane took off, but perhaps the outcome would have been different.
 
Hard slipping is sometimes associated with causing fuel exhaustion when fuel is really low since it can pull fuel away from the intake. Not sure I've heard of it blamed in a contamination case. Could happen, but real cause is the extensive fuel contamination. NTSB said they were pulling more water than fuel out so if that's the case the engine is going to have issues regardless of how the plane is flown.
 
I thought all the water was supposed to come out when you sump the tanks...how do you end up with that much water still in there? And where was all that water hiding during the first flight hour :dunno:
 
gms5002 said:
I thought all the water was supposed to come out when you sump the tanks...how do you end up with that much water still in there? And where was all that water hiding during the first flight hour :dunno:
Click to expand...

172M. Is this the last of the 172s with just a few quick drains or one of the new ones with a dozen or more?

-Skip
 
Skip Miller said:
172M. Is this the last of the 172s with just a few quick drains or one of the new ones with a dozen or more?



-Skip
Click to expand...

It only has 3 IIRC. I think it was sometime after the 172P that Cessna quadrupled the number of drains.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top