AdamFrisch wrote:
I’m sorry, but why does everyone dance around the fact that if a single and a twin had the exact same amount of engine failures, regardless of hours, or conditions they fly in, then which one has statistically the higher possibility of making an emergency landing? 100% in the case of the single. Somewhere between 0-100% for the twin. That makes statistically the twin safer, no matter how you slice it.
Because it’s not about forced landings, it’s about mishandling leading to loss of control regardless of where the landing is.
A single, after the engine quits, retains pretty much whatever the flying characteristics it had before the engine stopped (except the ability to maintain altitude). People still mishandle them of course (usually stalling them) but even some of these mishandling events result in a survivable crash because the pilot at least managed to make some sort of recovery before the ground came up to smite them.
A twin’s flying qualities suddenly changes very much for the worse when an engine stops. Once the Vmc roll has started at 100 feet AGL it’s a challenge to recover from in any way that doesn’t still get everyone killed.
The fatal accident rate in twins, I wager, is mostly down to mishandling engine failures and consequent loss of control. There are a lot of actions to take (in a short space of time especially down low) in an aircraft that now has different flying qualities than it did just 30 seconds previously. Anecdotally, all the twin engine aircraft that I’ve personally known to crash have crashed due to mishandling after an engine failure (including a truly bizarre one which happened during cruise flight) or during instruction of engine failure (a recent one spun in from 4000 feet after a Vmc demo went wrong – the student survived and was still conscious after impact, calling the emergency services – but the instructor died).
alioth wrote:
That’s why the author of these things says nearest practicable airfield, not nearest airfield.
Reading glasses time? 
“… land(ed) as soon as practicable at the next available/suitable airfield”
The edict is next available and suitable airfield. Bad advice, in my opinion, for all the reasons we have both rehearsed.
Let me retell an anecdote told me by the then 757/767 Fleet Manager of a major international flag carrier.
They had an aircraft lose an engine approximately half way between Athens and Tirana, but heading north so marginally closer to Tirana. The crew, quite correctly, got out the books and followed them to the letter, making a successful landing at Tirana; where there were no hotels, no scheduled flights, no ground transportation and no engineering support for Boeings. Athens has all these things in spades, of course.
That exercise cost the airline a fortune and a huge amount of ill-will from their 200-odd passengers. The divert to Athens would have been about ten minutes longer in an ETOPS aircraft.
The airline changed its manuals.
Oh dear. Another religious war?
Do you actually read things before spouting off? It seems to me that the only one waging war is yourself.
Funny story… I “failed” my scam IR pre-test test 170A flight test for a number of reasons, one of which was that I filed (departure Shoreham, destination Bournemouth) Lydd as the alternate. The examiner (now long retired I am pleased to say) objected to Lydd because there is nothing there, adding that Southampton would be much better for my paying passengers. No good me telling him that Southampton will have exactly the same wx as Bournemouth, so is a useless alternate for the most common GA diversion scenario: wx.
Of course for a CAT3 airliner it is different.
Dave_Phillips wrote:
Do you actually read things before spouting off?
Yes, and I wonder why you feel the need to be wagging your finger and pointing at the AFM; especially as you made the observation earlier in the thread that you, yourself, had very wisely broken that AFM rule when circumstances dictated.
Interesting review of the Apache and Aztec in Aviation Consumer this month.
We were surprised by the percentage of accidents following the loss of one engine in which the pilot did not feather the propeller of the engine that had gone quiet—nearly half.
Cool it, guys. Just let it go.
All the regulars here have formed their points of view some time ago.
As a non multi-engine rated pilot, I always understood the phrase about the second engine taking you to the scene of the crash only as a reference to the danger of slow reflexes in the case of losing power on one side just after rotation on takeoff…. in all other phases of flight I would say that most of us uninformed single engine pilots would agree that having a second engine adds greatly to safety…
AnthonyQ wrote:
danger of slow reflexes
Actually, my experience as an MEP instructor is that the opposite is true. It is mainly about slowing people down to the point where they get it right, every time.
denopa wrote:
We were surprised by the percentage of accidents following the loss of one engine in which the pilot did not feather the propeller of the engine that had gone quiet—nearly half.
Actually, I think that that is not surprising. Yes, it is surprising that people didn’t do it, but it is not surprising that those that don’t result in an accident.
Turning it into (entirely fictitious but believable) figures:
1000 engine failures
20 of them failed to feather
10 went on to an accident
In some ways, I am surprised that the figure is that low. At full power on one engine and windmilling on the other, at blue line, the Aztec will not fly in a straight line, at any (sensible) bank angle. I know because I have tried it.
