Teller1900
En-Route
It started off as a normal day. The AM crew brought the plane in only 10 minutes late, so CA Jared and I thought we'd stand a pretty good chance of running on time. CA Kris gave us the rundown of the plane's squawks...Hobbs meter MELed, left gen. tie kept opening on first flight of the day, so they replaced the generator in Boston that morning and it's worked fine ever since. The left engine was running about 50-70 degrees warmer than the right during cruise, but then normalized during decent...no big deal. Otherwise, great airplane, and a great day in Boston (calm, 10, and clr). There's no reason we shouldn't be on time for our 8:55pm arrival back home.
OK! We get loaded into the plane, I grab the clearance while CA Jared boards the pax, we get our release from Portland Approach and are ready to go in less than 10 minutes.
"Before takeoff checklist complete, no known or observed traffic," I advice CA Jared, "lets go!"
It's his leg down to KBOS, so he stands on the brakes and runs up the power. Both auto-feather lights come on shortly after the props come up on the governors, so he releases the brakes and advance the power levers to 3500 ft-lbs of torque...takeoff thrust.
"Set power," he asks.
I glance at the engine instruments, "Power set," I reply without having to adjust anything.
"80 kts" is my next call out as I cross-check both airspeeds. "V1, rotate" I call out and Jared hauls back on the yoke to take us flying....
At least, that's how it's supposed to happen.
_____________________________________________________________
"Before takeoff checklist complete, no known or observed traffic," I advice CA Jared, "lets go!"
It's his leg down to KBOS, so he stands on the brakes and runs up the power. Both auto-feather lights come on shortly after the props come up on the governors, so he releases the brakes and advance the power levers toward 3500 ft-lbs of torque...takeoff thrust.
I have my hand right below his on the power levers waiting for the "set power" call out. Through 40kts and it hasn't come yet. I am staring at the engine gauges and he is splitting his attention between the engines and the runway, while fighting - hard - to keep us on centerline. The right engine is at takeoff thrust, but the left has stopped at 2500 ft-lbs of torque and only 82% N1. He rides the brakes a bit to keep us slow. The left power lever hits the fire wall...about four to five inches farther forward than the right lever. That's strange. The 1000 ft markers go under us as we hit 60kts, but still no power on the left engine. At 74kts we simultaneously yell "Woah!" as we watch the ITT unexpectedly and quickly rise over 820 degrees C...over the red line.
"Ok...that's it," Jared exclaims as he closes the power, "Abort, abort, abort, my controls." A short dip into reverse thrust and we're off the runway at Charlie.
"Augusta area traffic, 4970 is clearing runway 35 at Charlie, Augusta."
A Bonanza in the pattern chimes in "wow, that was a quick flight."
"That's why you should fly with us," I reply, "we'll get you to Boston even before we leave."
We run the after-landing checklist as CA Jared regales me with a long series of swear words.
We head back to the gate and deplane all seven of the pax. Contract mx from the other side of the field comes over and tows our plane out of the way as the Albany plane pulls up to take our passengers. CA Jared and the mechanic both think that the fuel-control unit was somehow knocked out of alignment when they replaced the generator and it went from no fuel to "here's all your gas at once" which caused the over-temp and lack of acceleration on the engine. That's a definite problem, but nothing fatal for the plane, since we exceeded the redline for less than the 5-second limitation.
The mechanic removed the cowling around the accessory gearbox where the FCU is. Everything was as it should be. So there's one theory gone. He moves on to the middle cowling over the aft section of the engine...where the air intake is. As soon as he pulls the cowling down, the mechanic starts laughing...Jared and I run for our cameras, because this is what we just found...
That's right...hand towels covering 80-90 percent of the air intake grate. So much restriction, in fact, that the solid metal grates were bent by the paper towels. The first picture shows the left (outboard) side of the engine with the ice light in the foreground. The third picture shows the grates after the paper was removed...the flange on the left should be perfectly flush and round...as should the grates. The fourth picture is the bottom of the engine, with ever more paper packed on and little pieces of shredded paper sitting inside the engine intake.
In the second picture, the mechanic was just getting ready to look to the left (forward) inside the cowl, where he found three or four more towels sitting...untouched...behind the ice vanes (inertial separators) on the bottom of the cowl. This rules out maintenance control's first question of "was it the morning or the afternoon crew that sucked something into the engine?" The point of the ice vanes is to separate thick particles (ice, rain, FOD, etc) from the air flowing into the engine...the vanes were out the entire time we were on the ground and there's no way un-torn towels could come to rest behind the vanes on the bottom of the cowl. Best theory we have is that someone put a stack inside the cowl while replacing the generator, then forgot to take them out before re-cowling the engine. Neither the AM crew nor myself could see them inside the intake during the preflight, and they didn't get sucked up against the engine until they were in flight.
Company mx drove up from Hyannis, MA and spent all yesterday borescopeing the engine and replacing the intake grate. The plane was returned to service shortly after we got home (in our new plane) a little after midnight last night - after a very long, very not-normal day.
OK! We get loaded into the plane, I grab the clearance while CA Jared boards the pax, we get our release from Portland Approach and are ready to go in less than 10 minutes.
"Before takeoff checklist complete, no known or observed traffic," I advice CA Jared, "lets go!"
It's his leg down to KBOS, so he stands on the brakes and runs up the power. Both auto-feather lights come on shortly after the props come up on the governors, so he releases the brakes and advance the power levers to 3500 ft-lbs of torque...takeoff thrust.
"Set power," he asks.
I glance at the engine instruments, "Power set," I reply without having to adjust anything.
"80 kts" is my next call out as I cross-check both airspeeds. "V1, rotate" I call out and Jared hauls back on the yoke to take us flying....
At least, that's how it's supposed to happen.
_____________________________________________________________
"Before takeoff checklist complete, no known or observed traffic," I advice CA Jared, "lets go!"
It's his leg down to KBOS, so he stands on the brakes and runs up the power. Both auto-feather lights come on shortly after the props come up on the governors, so he releases the brakes and advance the power levers toward 3500 ft-lbs of torque...takeoff thrust.
I have my hand right below his on the power levers waiting for the "set power" call out. Through 40kts and it hasn't come yet. I am staring at the engine gauges and he is splitting his attention between the engines and the runway, while fighting - hard - to keep us on centerline. The right engine is at takeoff thrust, but the left has stopped at 2500 ft-lbs of torque and only 82% N1. He rides the brakes a bit to keep us slow. The left power lever hits the fire wall...about four to five inches farther forward than the right lever. That's strange. The 1000 ft markers go under us as we hit 60kts, but still no power on the left engine. At 74kts we simultaneously yell "Woah!" as we watch the ITT unexpectedly and quickly rise over 820 degrees C...over the red line.
"Ok...that's it," Jared exclaims as he closes the power, "Abort, abort, abort, my controls." A short dip into reverse thrust and we're off the runway at Charlie.
"Augusta area traffic, 4970 is clearing runway 35 at Charlie, Augusta."
A Bonanza in the pattern chimes in "wow, that was a quick flight."
"That's why you should fly with us," I reply, "we'll get you to Boston even before we leave."
We run the after-landing checklist as CA Jared regales me with a long series of swear words.
We head back to the gate and deplane all seven of the pax. Contract mx from the other side of the field comes over and tows our plane out of the way as the Albany plane pulls up to take our passengers. CA Jared and the mechanic both think that the fuel-control unit was somehow knocked out of alignment when they replaced the generator and it went from no fuel to "here's all your gas at once" which caused the over-temp and lack of acceleration on the engine. That's a definite problem, but nothing fatal for the plane, since we exceeded the redline for less than the 5-second limitation.
The mechanic removed the cowling around the accessory gearbox where the FCU is. Everything was as it should be. So there's one theory gone. He moves on to the middle cowling over the aft section of the engine...where the air intake is. As soon as he pulls the cowling down, the mechanic starts laughing...Jared and I run for our cameras, because this is what we just found...
That's right...hand towels covering 80-90 percent of the air intake grate. So much restriction, in fact, that the solid metal grates were bent by the paper towels. The first picture shows the left (outboard) side of the engine with the ice light in the foreground. The third picture shows the grates after the paper was removed...the flange on the left should be perfectly flush and round...as should the grates. The fourth picture is the bottom of the engine, with ever more paper packed on and little pieces of shredded paper sitting inside the engine intake.
In the second picture, the mechanic was just getting ready to look to the left (forward) inside the cowl, where he found three or four more towels sitting...untouched...behind the ice vanes (inertial separators) on the bottom of the cowl. This rules out maintenance control's first question of "was it the morning or the afternoon crew that sucked something into the engine?" The point of the ice vanes is to separate thick particles (ice, rain, FOD, etc) from the air flowing into the engine...the vanes were out the entire time we were on the ground and there's no way un-torn towels could come to rest behind the vanes on the bottom of the cowl. Best theory we have is that someone put a stack inside the cowl while replacing the generator, then forgot to take them out before re-cowling the engine. Neither the AM crew nor myself could see them inside the intake during the preflight, and they didn't get sucked up against the engine until they were in flight.
Company mx drove up from Hyannis, MA and spent all yesterday borescopeing the engine and replacing the intake grate. The plane was returned to service shortly after we got home (in our new plane) a little after midnight last night - after a very long, very not-normal day.
