Madison WI- successful emergency landing

Sounds like a great landing. Maybe she accidentally turned it to fuel cutoff?
 
Viney's grandmother was grateful because she overhead a Dodge County Sheriff's deputy say that the outcome of the landing would have been far worse if she had landed one field over."
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I think this is true of almost all on-airport landings as well.
 
ajstoner21 said:
Sounds like a great landing. Maybe she accidentally turned it to fuel cutoff?
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That's what I was thinking. I'm not familiar with an Archer. Does it have a 3 position switch?
 
I think the piper warrior has left, right and off, but I thought you had to push in first or something to get it to the off position. I don't know about the archer.

Edit: initially thought it had both. Was mistaken.
 
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I hate those selectors valves. :mad: The handle is bigger than the little arrow pointer and some have made the mistake of thinking the handle is the pointer shutting the fuel off. In any of my planes I modify the handle to reflect the handle pointing at what I want the valve to do.
 
Badger said:
That's what I was thinking. I'm not familiar with an Archer. Does it have a 3 position switch?
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It does, but it is fairly difficult to get to the off position mistakenly. Heck, I have a hard time getting it there on purpose. You have to manuever it into that postion with knowing how to do it.

It could have been the switch or when changing tanks she didn't have the pump on and it cut out for some reason OR, she really did get it in the off postion.

Someday we'll find out.
 
ajstoner21 said:
I think the piper warrior has left, both, right and off, but I thought you had to push in first or something to get it to the off position. I don't know about the archer.
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No "both" in an Archer.

The selector can be turned 180 deg from left to right without going through the off position.

It's also not that hard to put it between detents. Maybe that's what happened. It's important to turn the selector until you feel a firm click. It's also normal procedure to turn the boost pump on while switching to prevent momentary starvation. And good practice NOT to do this where you don't have time to switch it back and wait for then engine to come back. Never in the pattern, never at low altitude, and never over hostile terrain (unless you really screwed up and the selected tank is empty). An Archer has a solid four hour duration with full tanks and longer-than-minimum reserve. You can fly 150 nm or more if you discover a switch problem at your first switch.

The before-landing checklist says to switch to the fullest tank, but the time to do that is while you're still descending, at least 2000 AGL.
 
Great Job...
Seems to have been well reported, too
 
I'm at MSN this morning for something with a worse outcome (no people injured, I'll post a thread later) but the word on the ramp is that it was fuel starvation. Words on the ramp being what they are, though, who really knows.
 
MAKG1 said:
The before-landing checklist says to switch to the fullest tank, but the time to do that is while you're still descending, at least 2000 AGL.
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I've moved this step to my before descent checklist, for reasons previously stated.
 
ajstoner21 said:
Come to think of it, no both in the warrior either. I was mistaken.
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Few if any low-wing aircraft have a 'both' position*. The main reason for that is the fact that the fuel lines are under suction, a 'both' position would allow the engine to suck in air from the empty tank even though you still have fuel in the other tank. In a high-wing, the fuel line is typically under positive pressure.



*there are probably some that use a header tank
 
weilke said:
Few if any low-wing aircraft have a 'both' position*. The main reason for that is the fact that the fuel lines are under suction, a 'both' position would allow the engine to suck in air from the empty tank even though you still have fuel in the other tank. In a high-wing, the fuel line is typically under positive pressure.



*there are probably some that use a header tank
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My Commander has a 'both' position and no header.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
 
wsuffa said:
My Commander has a 'both' position and no header.
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I wonder whether that is because the tanks are that far outboard (putting them higher relative to the fuel injection system than on other low-wing designs) ?
 
Local Cherokee 6 pilot scared himself silly by putting the selector between detents .
The engine started surging and missing right at rotation. In his panic he missed it and the engine power was way down.

Geico, I would strongly question the wisdom of reversing the selector handle so that the big end is the "pointer" I know that you think it is your airplane and under your control, etc. Murphy never sleeps. And neither does the FSDO.
 
weilke said:
I wonder whether that is because the tanks are that far outboard (putting them higher relative to the fuel injection system than on other low-wing designs) ?
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The bottom of the tanks is just outboard of the gear wells, and the gascolater/electric fuel pump is much higher than that. There are check-valves in the system and both electric and engine-driven fuel pumps.

Fuel selector has 5 positions: off-left-both-right-off. Not had any problems with the arrangement, though once at cruise I alternate between left (only) and right (only) to balance fuel burn, using "both" for TO, approach, and climb.
 
weilke said:
Few if any low-wing aircraft have a 'both' position*. The main reason for that is the fact that the fuel lines are under suction, a 'both' position would allow the engine to suck in air from the empty tank even though you still have fuel in the other tank. In a high-wing, the fuel line is typically under positive pressure.



*there are probably some that use a header tank
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The Zlin 242L has 'both' position but no header tank.
 
Badger said:
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/lo...cle_3e996862-488d-59be-90b2-9f47ec54eb30.html

19 year old did a nice job with the landing. She claimed in an interview the fuel selector malfunctioned, but if they allowed the plane to fly home a few days later, I gotta think it was something else (or they installed a new switch?).
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She has a moderately unique name, making a web search worth a shot - it appears the young pilot has a twitter account. Photo on there seems to show her pre or post-flighting a Cessna.

Whatever the cause, even if a mistake on her part, hopefully she gets back on the proverbial horse.
 
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