A search here on
twins
digs out a whole lot of interesting and passionate threads about twins 
Adam, I’ve had one and I still do. Admittedly it wasn’t a complete engine failure but it was enough that I know the risk is real. I don’t think I’m the only one.
A second engine is not the only possible mitigant, and we can dismiss the numbers obviously, but at the very least it’s not clear that it’s the best mitigant. It would be nice if someone could show stats, even flawed, that proved twins are safer.
Aren’t we comparing apples to oranges here? I’m sure a twin is a safer option if you have an engine quit up high, but how about EFATO? This, after all, is where the really deadly traps lurk, both in SEP and MEP. An engine failure in cruise seems to be largely manageable in both types. Are there any meaningful statistics out there WRT the outcome(s) of EFATOs, SEP vs MEP?
For the avoidance of doubt, I have no skin in this game. I decided long ago that I wouldn’t have the money to stay current in a twin and therefore never did my ME rating.
AdamFrisch wrote:
Anyone who’s flown around their family or loved ones in a plane that had an engine failure they survived will not return to a single
Well, one can execute a perfectly safe forced landing and go flying the next day. It’s just a matter of proper training, cool head and a bit of luck. During the good old times when I was flying gliders I probably did about 10 forced landings each and every year. With enough practice it becomes a routine. Of course circumstances are a bit different in an airplane but just a bit.
A glider-derived forced landing skill would not help you above this
or indeed above many other things e.g. dense forests, or a city.
Another factor, not yet mentioned AFAIK, is that twins
…water, or even farmland at night.
AdamFrisch wrote:
Anyone who’s flown around their family or loved ones in a plane that had an engine failure they survived will not return to a single.
If he can afford to. And it does depend on the outcome too. I’d think that anyone who has had his family on board for a forced landing might well get the law of the house put onto them and never fly again, or at least not with the family.
I do know a guy who had an engine failure on a Twin Commanche shortly after he bought it while running low level on the shoreline transition near JFK over water and at night. The engine did not quite fail at him totally but enough to make it perfectly clear that had this been a single, he’d been in the water. As it was, he landed happily and got it fixed, but it brought home the message.
172driver wrote:
I’m sure a twin is a safer option if you have an engine quit up high, but how about EFATO? This, after all, is where the really deadly traps lurk, both in SEP and MEP.
Well it certainly is where all the bad press for the Twins has it’s origin from. EFATO in most light twins (Apache, Twin Com, Seneca I, Cougar e.t.c.) means in most cases the exactly same thing as for a SEP: Close throttles and land straight ahead. That is at least until your gear and flaps are up, which usually happens within the first 500 ft or so. Once they are safely tucked away, I’d say that in some of those planes there is a chance to continue flying IF the pilot is rather quick in his response of identify, feather, e.t.c. but realistically, those underpowered twins do have a problem there until about 1000 ft AGL, from which options in a SEP go up as well considerably.
EFATO however is only one failure scenario and it is not by far the most common. Most of the light twins have a single engine service ceiling of around 4000 ft DA at MTOW. If you get a failure in climb or cruise above that, what will happen is that you will secure the failed engine, let speed decay to blue line and descend on blue line in a drift down. While the direction is the same as in a SEP, the rate of descent in a MEP drifting down on one full power engine and one feathered will be much less, giving you quite a bit of time to find where to go as opposed to a SEP, where a forced landing is now pretty much a done thing. Even over mountains, if you have not been skimming the peaks but had a few thousand feet of air in between you and the granite, chances are that you will be able to find a drift down path which will allow you to descent to eventually the OEI service ceiling at quite a leasurly pace. Your chance of landing someplace with a dedicated runway is quite high.
Same goes for night flying, same goes for over water. Even if you will eventually drift down to 4000 ft or so, over an ocean there is not much in the way of obstacled there. At night this may be different, but I’ll take flying on one engine at low altitude at night anytime over heading for the darkest hole I can find in the hope it’s a meadow…
During my twin flying I had this demostrated to me once in a Beech Travel Air. We were at 12’000 ft and put one engine in zero thrust setting over some mountains in Switzerland. We were only two on board and about half full of fuel. Rate of descent initially was about 200-300 fpm, we headed for the nearest flat lands. The airplane actually was able to hold about 7500 ft coming down with the weight we had. From that position we had all the midlands airfields at our disposal to go land.
Same goes for IFR to low minimas. Flying a full CAT I down to 200 ft and 550 m RVR in a twin is a much more relaxed thing than if you do that in a SEP where you could find out at the missed approach point that no, it won’t go up but only down! While an engine failure on a twin just at the point where you put the power on for a go around at 200 ft in the murk is one of the most challenging things you can encounter, at least you have a chance. In a SEP your outlook is quite dire…
Also, engine failures in cruise are much more benign to deal with than in a high power situation like Go around or initial climb as the speed is much higher and power setting normally lower.
As I’ve said before, on larger twins with better power available at one engine out it is again a different thing.
For the flying I do, which is mostly over land and VFR-Day, my SEP does not present a much increased risk, but would I have to fly over water or
Most of the twins I have flown have not, as far as I have been able to tell, been spun in testing.
But I can’t imagine that a normal recovery, possibly assisted by a little inside engine, would not work. Twins do tend to have big rudders, and effective ailerons, after all.
I am much more concerned about spiral dives, especially OEI.
Peter wrote:
A glider-derived forced landing skill would not help you above this
There are hundreds of known outlining places across the Alps. Same for Italy, not sure how many in Pyrenees – have not flown there for over 10 years. My Jodel can be safely landed on every single one of them. Staying within gliding range of landable terrain would make you safe. Now the overcast. What would be your plan B if the only engine quits over there If you know where is a valley – point your nose there because it’s your only chance. Of course one can just allow his AP to follow the magenta and not care what’s below the clouds, but that’s above my risk comfort level. Gliding through overcast during return from mountain wave flight is nothing extraordinary. Or at least it wasn’t in the pre-EASA times. That’s why gliders were equipped with T&B.
Peter wrote:
or indeed above many other things e.g. dense forests, or a city.
People land in forests and in cities. A very dense forest would be safer to crash-land on then many other places. There are techniques to minimise risks of such landing, so again one can do it.
Timothy wrote:
farmland at nig
show me the night pls. 
Unless someone is flying low in remote parts of the continent, of course
