Fuel Scare

[AdamZ]

Right now I am sick to my stomach. Not one hour ago I helped my very good friend and regular flying companion get off from KLOM to KUNV. He was flying his daughter and two of her friends back to Penn State after the holiday. I was supposed to take a family photo by the plane for them which didn't happen cause his daughter and her friends were late getting to the field but thats irrelevant cause time was not a factor here.

Anyway as he fires up the lance on the ramp with the three girls in the plane I was standing next to his wife and younger daughter on the Pax side of the plane and I see liquid streamng out of what I thought was the cowl sump on the Pax side of the Lance. ( note the Lance does not have a sump pitcock on the cowl) as the plane kicks over it stops but I run in front of the plane ( no prop danger where I was) and give him the shut down sign. he shuts down and I saw the stream again. It looked like from the Pilot side it was comming from the front gear door. Then it stopped. He opened the small window and I told him what I saw. I suggested he start it up again. Some liquid leaked out but then stopped. I suggested he run it on the ramp for a minuite as if any liquid blew back I would have enough time to see it splash and accumulate to on the ground. I saw nothing after a about a minuite and a half and gave him the thumbs up. I thought perhaps he over primed it and the excess was just venting.

I followed his flight to KUNV on Flight aware and it took a bit longer than the usual 50 min flight was actually about 1:07. Then I figured He'd be back in about an hour or an hour and a half as he planed on adding about 20 gal out there. He had more than enough for the flight and reserves but went a bit lighter b/c of the weight.

Then about 20 min after he lands at KUNV I get a call from him. hes not comming back tonight the plane has a fuel leak. UGH! Apparently it happens when the boost pump goes on? He was 12 nm out State College and looks down and sees one tank dry and 10 gal in the other.

Thankfully he landed safely and uneventfully and tried to Dx the fuel leak. Weird thing was his right gauge showed empty but the dial on the right wing showed 15 gallons and the right gauge showed 10 gal but the wing dial gauge showed 25 gal. I know you should't rely on the gauges but I don't thing the panel gauges and wings dial gauges should be that far off.

Either way I felt like crap! Why would I just assume that the fuel was from over priming? Stupid assumption. The fact that it stopped at some point lead me further down the road of "it is fine" Ironically this is so unlike me I'm usually neurotic about an saftey issue. I think that the fuel acutally evaporated in the prop wash while my buddy was letting it run on the ramp. 100LL evaporates in seconds. Why wouldn't I realize that? Its not going to splash back on the ground.

Stoopid Stoopid Stoopid. I really felt like I let my friend down. I don't know perhaps the time did have something to do with it. Perhaps I would not have felt like I should just let him get on his way. I also recognize he could have gotten out of the plane and looked and let me turn it over.

Well learn what you can from this.

 

[jesse]

Thanks for the post Adam.

This is just a reminder that we all need to keep an eye on fuel situations in flight. I trained with planes with gauges never ever read close at all. Usually always said 3/4 full no matter what. I've been trying to train myself to monitor the gauges more now and compare them to what I should have burned based on the Hobbs meter.

On the last Diamond flight I added 5 gallons of fuel at an airport. Just so I wouldn't have to worry on the return leg. (I would have just topped it off but the receipt printer was broke and I was worried I might not get reembursed)

 

[TMetzinger]

Adam,

I'm glad things worked out ok, and I'm also glad you feel bad about it. You just learned something, and won't make that category of mistake again, I'll bet. So on to your next mistake so you can repeat the process.

Edit: I also agree that you weren't flying the airplane, and the PIC was responsible, so whatever happened wasn't your responsibility.

Best wishes,

 

[Dave Siciliano]

Adam:

At least you saw the problem and pointed it out to him. That may be the reason he stopped when he did; because he was watching it. Sometimes, that's all one can do.

If you really know the plane, and are fimiliar with how it operates, you can be more knowledgeable. If not, all you can do, is what you did; hey, look at this. Is this normal--to the PIC?

It would have been nice if he had called a mechanic to look at it, but he didn't. Maybe he'll think about it in the future also. I've had the same thing happen to me; someone pointed out something looked funny. I always stop and look. couple times it was no big deal; once it was! Another good reason to have a handheld with you. If you see something like this, you can at least call the guy if he's already taxiing.

Best,

Dave

 

[Scott 'Gunny' Perdue]

Adam-

I've got to agree with Dave on this one... It sounds like a reasonable assumption to count it as an overprime.... you don't know the airplane... you pointed it out and your friend was very likely paying more attention to the problem... nobody's perfect and you did what you thought was right... you are being to hard on yourself.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

At least you saw the problem and pointed it out to him. That may be the reason he stopped when he did; because he was watching it. Sometimes, that's all one can do.

Adam,

I'm with Dave. Your pointing it out in the first place probably helped him to remember to keep an eye on it and helped him catch it when he did, which was early enough to avert disaster. You did just fine.

 

[Richard]

While Adam did the right thing he may be feeling sick because he fell into complacency. The real lesson learned is how easily such a thing can creep up on you.

Pilot training mentions these things but doesn't really venture into real world scenarios or how insidious these things can be. Rather, we're left with the idea that it will be all to easy to spot, therefore easily avoided.

Lest you think I am attacking training only I add, when is the last time most pilots have stepped back to consider how easy it can be to fall into such traps as what Adam wrote about? Probably, during initial training would be the answer.

 

[SkyHog]

I see no problem on your part Adam. You let him know. I don't know about the wisdom of launching without actually having it checked out on his part, but I wasn't there, in his shoes, so I don't know.

It all worked out in the end, so it was a problem avoided.

 

[Baron 55]

A fellow I vaguely knew rented a Baron from our club once and stuffed five passengers [his family] in it for a long x-co which would cross the Grand Canyon [I heard him talking about the trip]. I was walking across the ramp to meet a student and noticed fuel streaming [not just dripping rapidly] from the right main sump. Engines were running, and I walked over to where he could see me and motioned for him to shut down. He wouldn't, kept shaking his head. Finally, after increasingly insistent hassling, he did and opened the little side window. I told him about the fuel, he insisted it leaked all the time, slowly, no big deal. I knew the plane a lot better than he did, flew it frequently, knew the leak wasn't normal and who wants a leaking fuel sump in any case. I finally convinced him to get out of the plane [shut down engines, make the wife get out, crawl over her seat, and he was in a cranky mood, glaring at me. When he bent over and looked at the big puddle of fuel on the asphalt, he was quite a different guy.

You do what you can. In your case, had I been the pilot in the plane, I would've wanted to get out and check it. Even if it had been overpriming, that could've caused an engine compartment fire.