Down aircraft PA31 Piper Navajo Leesburg Intl

Gadgetman

Gadgetman

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Darren
I don't understand ... did the gauge break before the flight, during flight, or what? Was fuel level never checked by visual inspection? HOw do 2 experienced pilots run out of gas? Complacency? I'm a newbie, help me out.

Condolences to the family, real sad story.


SteveinIndy said:
"The gas gauge broke..."

So the pilot wasn't double checking the numbers. What a waste of a good plane and human lives.
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Rayden said:
I don't understand ... did the gauge break before the flight, during flight, or what? Was fuel level never checked by visual inspection? HOw do 2 experienced pilots run out of gas? Complacency? I'm a newbie, help me out.

Condolences to the family, real sad story.
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A number of planes, including Navajos, have gas gauges that don't give an accurate or reliable measure of fuel in the tanks. Of the two Navajos I flew, one had very accurate and consistent gauges, the other one you pretty much had to ignore them. Let's assume it was the latter, and they were just that way and would be that way until the end of time.

It's not uncommon for pilots to accept this. I was one of them (of course, I liked getting paid), and you typically pay close attention to the stopwatch, which is pretty consistent, and then that works out well.

Ways of running out of fuel include the following:

1) Fuel was leaking (happens, but rare)
2) Engine was consuming more fuel (poor management, some other kind of fueling problem)
3) "Hoping" you have enough fuel to get there after your flight planning didn't go as planned

Most likely was problem 3. Sometimes you see this more with experienced pilots because they think they can make it and are too lazy/cheap to get fuel elsewhere.
 
Sometimes you see this more with experienced pilots because they think they can make it and are too lazy/cheap to get fuel elsewhere.
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Especially among the "very smart" crowd (as the PIC in this case was described as being) who think they are too good to crash.
 
Every PA31 I have ever flown had fuel gauges you couldn't trust farther than you could throw them. People do stupid things, and sometimes people die because of it. This is one of those times. You should never trust a float type gauge in any airplane ever. And that whole "they are accurate only when empty" stuff is a bunch of garbage.
 
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Sheesh....sad and this happens way too many times. You have a dipstick, a watch, and know how much fuel your plane burns in an hour....right?

Condolences.
 
Having seen first-hand the results of a pressurized fuel line breakage on a Lycoming engine, I'm hesitant to jump to conclusions about such a crash, even though it's odds-on that he simply ran out of gas. I don't know how much fuel can be pumped overboard in a short period of time, but it can make a big difference especially near the end of a trip when tanks are depleted from normal usage.
 
Ohh that sucks, this the Albatross Lady's husband. She's a local fly-in only real estate agent. I see Julie was onboard and injured, sad to hear. They've flown their Albatross all over the place. I see planes coming in and out of the aerodrome constantly while down at the lake house :(.
 
wabower said:
Having seen first-hand the results of a pressurized fuel line breakage on a Lycoming engine, I'm hesitant to jump to conclusions about such a crash, even though it's odds-on that he simply ran out of gas. I don't know how much fuel can be pumped overboard in a short period of time, but it can make a big difference especially near the end of a trip when tanks are depleted from normal usage.
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Ya but that leaves a good engine unless they are cross feeding fuel from the other tank into the leak as well, which I would be shocked if that were the case.
 
Is that more shocking than the fact that they ran out of gas to start with? What would you do if one quit and you had no visual or instrument indication of a leak?
Inverted said:
Ya but that leaves a good engine unless they are cross feeding fuel from the other tank into the leak as well, which I would be shocked if that were the case.
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I just mean if it was in fact a leak, they would have had to know it was a leak, and chose to feed it. So yes, to me that is more shocking than running out of gas because they didn't know how much they had in the tanks.

Well, we don't know what type of equipment the airplane actually had on board. There certainly is a chance the engine burned more fuel than the other for one reason or another, but I would be very suspicious of an engine quitting, then having it restart once I pump fuel over from the good side. In fact, this was never SOP at my previous company in the first place. I don't remember what the PA31 POH says but I bet it says something about opening crossflow to feed the operating engine. Why risk having 2 engines take a dump when you have one running?
 
Maybe the closest I came to ending in a fiery crash. I had almost 1000 hrs of VFR hand flying and 300 hrs in Type. I helped someone move a, new to them, Comanche from the West coast to NYC. On the first leg we were overly cautious and we checked the actual lean fuel flows for later use. By the end of our trip we felt we knew the actual habits of that plane and we took our 2nd to last leg to within 1 hr of fuel on landing by calculations. We monitored fuel usage and levels but when we landed and refilled the fuel guys said you were on fumes. The only thing we can think of is that my knee inadvertently hit rich mixture over the many hours of that leg.

We were landing in the Wheeling, PA area. On landing the winds were very high and very gusty. I remember the PIC saying lets divert to another airport and see if we could beat these winds and I told him nah! You get me down within 50' of the runway and I will plant this Comanche on the runway.

I had not realize we would never have made it to the next airport, out of fuel, hills and trees with no options to land. I was tired of being in the airplane and didn't want to be bothered with another 15-20 minutes flight on such a low chance of effecting winds anyway.

Side note, maybe because I fly in Kansas where you better be able to handle a 35-47 knot winds and gusts and regularly land in such weather or just because I use my Comanche for long XCountry trips (and you never know what you get en route) and keep my landing skills highly polished but I feel I would not be here today if we had not made that decision to land here, land now.
 
Side note, maybe because I fly in Kansas where you better be able to handle a 35-47 knot winds and gusts and regularly land in such weather or just because I use my Comanche for long XCountry trips (and you never know what you get en route) and keep my landing skills highly polished but I feel I would not be here today if we had not made that decision to land here, land now.
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What's the crosswind limits for landing in a Comanche again? I used to know (because I have a few hours in one) but that bit of info is escaping me at the moment.
 
wabower said:
Having seen first-hand the results of a pressurized fuel line breakage on a Lycoming engine, I'm hesitant to jump to conclusions about such a crash, even though it's odds-on that he simply ran out of gas. I don't know how much fuel can be pumped overboard in a short period of time, but it can make a big difference especially near the end of a trip when tanks are depleted from normal usage.
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There's a reason why I always land with at least an hour remaining. We actually designated an hour and fifteen minutes of "bingo fuel" in the design I am working on as the reserve. I can't see the need to be in the air for long enough to burn the 4 hours of primary fuel and the reserve nor do I think my bladder would tolerate it. :wink2:
 
Inverted said:
I just mean if it was in fact a leak, they would have had to know it was a leak, and chose to feed it. So yes, to me that is more shocking than running out of gas because they didn't know how much they had in the tanks.

Well, we don't know what type of equipment the airplane actually had on board. There certainly is a chance the engine burned more fuel than the other for one reason or another, but I would be very suspicious of an engine quitting, then having it restart once I pump fuel over from the good side. In fact, this was never SOP at my previous company in the first place. I don't remember what the PA31 POH says but I bet it says something about opening crossflow to feed the operating engine. Why risk having 2 engines take a dump when you have one running?
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A Navajo isn't a great airplane on one engine. If they were lightly loaded, it'd be better, but there have been a number of cases where an engine on a Navajo quit and the pilot ended up crashing because he couldn't maintain altitude on the one good one.

Now, let's say that one engine did quit. I should know well enough to know what my fuel situation is. Let's say I know I'm low on fuel - then it's not unexpected for one tank to run out before the other. Ok, switch to other tank and/or crossfeed, since I don't want to crash with a plane that's very marginal on one engine.

Let's say that I don't know why I ran out of fuel this quickly. Now, does that mean the leak is in the engine or in the fuel tank? Since the Navajo doesn't have a fuel return, if it's in the tank (which is possible), then I'm doing well by running on the crossfeed, and that's the safest option. It's in the engine, then obviously I'm not, but if I have unreliable gauges, I don't necessarily know.

If I ran out of fuel on one side well before I expected to, most likely I would hit the crossfeed and then divert to a nearby airport to investigate the problem.
 
We use the heliport at Eagles Nest for a refueling spot when fighting fires in this area. I once received a tour of the albatross by this gentleman during some downtime. What a shame. He was a nice person.
 
Ted DuPuis said:
A Navajo isn't a great airplane on one engine. If they were lightly loaded, it'd be better, but there have been a number of cases where an engine on a Navajo quit and the pilot ended up crashing because he couldn't maintain altitude on the one good one.
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Navajos are horrible on one engine. I was thinking it was a Chieftain. -350 does a lot better on one engine.
 
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