alioth wrote:
It’s not a problem if your OH has an FAA single/multiengine land + instrument rating…
Why specifically FAA?
Noe, out of interest why a PAN and not MAYDAY? Glad it worked out.
I think because I still had some power and already had southend in sight practically in glide distance. Reflecting on a couple of things that I’d probably do differently and that is one of them.
I had the impression ATC did treat this as a mayday though (2 firetrucks and 2 jeeps waiting, avoiding making frequency checks, asked other planes to remain clear of the ATZ). Might not have been the same outside UK.
Noe wrote:
I had the impression ATC did treat this as a mayday though (2 firetrucks and 2 jeeps waiting, avoiding making frequency checks, asked other planes to remain clear of the ATZ). Might not have been the same outside UK.
I had exactly the same experience at Southend when the engine cowling on a Grumman Tiger decided to open mid flight on a night cross country from Biggin Hill.
Has it changed – mayday – serious problem, life threatening, pan – serious problem not immediately life threatening, but could become! (simple version I know).
It does always seem a bit of a judgement call – an engine failure in a single is always serious and even a controlled landing in a field could be life threatening. I have called a few Pans but never thank goodness a mayday. The last mayday I sadly heard was a yacht in the solent – the captain had been struck by the boom and had the most serious head injuries (he very sadly died in the helicopter) and most certainly met all the criteria of an immediate Pan, pan, pan.
According to ICAO mayday is an aircraft in grave or imminent danger and pan is for an urgent message. If you require immediate assistance you should use mayday IMHO. I was only asking as I would regard a dual ECU failure and possible engine failure in a single as an emergency and either declare an emergency or declare mayday. You may be able to glide there but you want to make sure they know you may have to do that and keep everything out of your way. In practice they treated it like an emergency of course.
It was not the flight that worried me but what happened after the the flight…
I was based 25 years ago at an airfield that was open 24 hours where I used to hire a Piper Cherokee and this particular night I flew back from Le Bouget to the UK leaving there at around 10pm, that was at a time when one could afford to land there, no problem with the flight except a raging headwind all the way, landed and parked up.
Next morning they started the engine and taxied to the hanger and the engine immediately cut out and would not restart whatever they did.
Problem was traced to an ovel shaped label that had been on the inside of the metal air filter since new and it had come loose and had wrapped itself around the spray bay in the carburettor, stopping fuel flow completely.
PHEW!
I mostly Agree with you and is one thing id do differently next time. The situation as it stayed was an urgency situation (ECU failure message went away on reduced power, and I had no issue at reduced power settings) but the increased likehood of complete power (mechanical) loss likely mandated this being treated as an emergency from the start.
If they had asked me anything other than my very direct routing and long final / put me behind some other traffic I would have requested priority and declared an emergency.
I did have the impression that one of the planes they kept away was a medevac (but from what I’ve seen on the ground didn’t seem anything very urgent – a polish twin piston, polish armed forces and a permanent care ambulance)
Noe wrote:
I mostly Agree with you and is one thing id do differently next time. The situation as it stayed was an urgency situation (ECU failure message went away on reduced power, and I had no issue at reduced power settings) but the increased likehood of complete power (mechanical) loss likely mandated this being treated as an emergency from the start.
I am sure you did the right thing but i just think we all as pilots are a little too reluctant to declare an emergency. Other than inconveniencing other traffic there are no real consequences for so doing in genuinely dangerous or very serious safety situations. Speaking with controllers I gather it can also sometimes simplify things versus asking for backdoor priority without declaring (I am not saying that is what you did but many do).
To be clear having analysed the situation after the fact I agree emergency would have been more appropriate, and it’s what I’ll do if something like that happens again in a single.
Probably In any situation in which I would declare a mayday to get a priority to land (or land without a clearance), the mayday should be declared immediately.
overall, I have to say it was a good learning experience, and gave a decent amount of food for thought. It wasn’t scary enough to scare me of singles, I’ve now arrived at my final destination Andy about to do some riskier single engine flight:
