Engine Failure - God's Protection
- 8 June, 2009 -
Jonathan Schmidt
Jonathan Schmidt
Something Wrong
With almost a full load of cargo and one passenger to Nuevo Mundo planning to pick up Ezequias Malpartida and company. I climbed to FL095 and leveled off and did a preliminary leaning. I discovered that for whatever reason, the coordinates in the check points in the route to NM were all screwed up. It had me flying 250 nm north of Cashibo before going on my merry way. Curiaca and Nueva Italia were the affected ones and so I measured the approximate position on the charts and reprogrammed the way points.
By that time I started the fine tuning of the leaning process and that was when the drop in oil quantity started to affect the waste gate and thus, the turbo and manifold pressure (unbeknownst to me at the time). I found peak which was about 100 degrees cooler than normal and started down the lean side and noticed that the fuel flow was under 10 gph! On checking my manifold pressure I discovered that it had dropped to 20 inches (basically minimal boost). I checked to make sure that the throttle had not slipped out and found it where I had locked it.
First ResponseMy first response was that I had a turbo failure and began a turn back to Cashibo. I called Dave Simmons who was flying at the time and advised him of my plans while taking in the rest of the instruments and discovered that the oil pressure had dropped to 0! I advised Dave Simmons of my new predicament. I currently was 29 miles from Nueva Italia and knew that it was out of gliding distance, so started my turn toward the mountains where there are some runways. Dave suggested several small runways and then I thought of Amaquiria which was a seventh day Adventist runway where years ago Clyde Peters had flown a Helio into the river with his family on board. (These things stick in one’s mind) Dave agreed that it would be my best bet.
I picked out the long loop of the “cano” of the Ucayali River and spotted the runway in a few seconds. I had never landed there before. I knew at that point that it was well within gliding distance. I reduced the power to idle and pulled the prop to course pitch/low RPM. In the mean time,, the prop continued at low RPM and knew that there was at least some oil pressure if only enough to supply oil to the prop governor. Air was glassy smooth and I was descending at 300 feet per minute. I arrived overhead of the runway at 6000 feet and started my circles to descend in the glide.
By the time I was descending through 4000 feet,, I noticed that there were soccer goals on the runway and asked Dave to pray that they would recognize that I was going to land and remove them. Dave recommended that I cycle the prop to make some noise. The second time I pulled the prop control back out the propeller went to high pitch much more sluggishly and I thought for sure that the engine was toast and I only had a few seconds before it would seize. When I checked the oil temp I was surprised to see that it had dropped to 95 degrees! I thought that was good news for the engine at least. My priority was to get the airplane on the ground safely, but wanted to do what I could to preserve the engine if it was possible. Within a few seconds I saw 4 people run to the goals and yank them out of the ground.
The airplane descended very close to 1000 feet per 360 degrees of turn at the angle of bank I was using. With that knowledge I planned to arrive at the key position at 1700 feet, guessing that the runway was at 700 feet. I ended up a couple hundred feet high so flew a slightly longer angled downwind/base leg to compensate. There was no wind indicator on the ground and could not tell that I had about 5 knots of tailwind component on final approach. On final approach I knew that I had the runway made so I went to full flaps and turned off the fuel and pulled the mixture. I did not turn the master off since I wanted to be able to retract the flaps on rollout. I touched down about 100 meters down the runway and discovered that it was very rough and undulating. I began to dump the flaps immediately but this system is the “modern” slow poke system that takes forever to move. Before I came to a stop the engine quit wind milling. (which was a strange feeling) I thanked the Lord for safety and climbed out to a very friendly crowd of people all of which had different stories to tell of what they heard and saw. Truth be known, none of them heard the plane till I pushed the prop in on purpose to make some noise so that they could be clear of the runway.
When my passenger and I exited the airplane,. we saw that there in fact was a juicy patch all down the right side of the belly. No surprise to you Turbo guys out there, I had a major oil leak on something to do with the turbo. When I dipped the oil there were 3 quarts (of the 13qts max) left in the sump. Add that to the one quart that is in the filter and there remained 4 qts. in the engine. I found a spot off to the side of the runway and with many helping hands we pushed the airplane there and built a shelter over the engine expecting the worst. I popped the cowling and the turbo removable cheek and the air filter to get a good look.
On initial inspection it was not very apparent where the oil was coming from (it was everywhere!)so I waited for the other airplane to come with some supplies to wash the engine down. We decided that there was no sense in finding the oil leak if the engine was toast. So we pulled the oil filter and cut it open to see if there was any metal. I had no metal in it all, PTL! So we proceeded to wash the engine down and run it up. No sooner than I had oil pressure (which was good in itself) Jammer waved at me to kill it, because there was oil spraying everywhere. (Makes me thank God that there was no fire on the way down). We pinpointed the leak to the supply line to the waste gate. A fitting that is very difficult to see, much less inspect and tighten. I am guessing that it was not sufficiently tightened on installation and over the 400 hours it continued to loosen till on this flight it started to leak and then worked itself to the place where it was a “shower”.
Not being satisfied, we pulled a valve cover to verify that there was no damage to the top end for lack of oil. We found the rocker arms and valve tips like new PTL! I then ran up the engine again to verify that the turbo would pump up to full pressure and that all the other parameters were normal, which they were. It was getting later in the day and it was decided that since I had all the excitement during the emergency that it would be better if someone else flew it while I took a day (or two) to reflect and make sure I was up to flying again. Actually, I can’t wait to fly again. My life is in the Lord’s hands, although I will do everything in my power to make good decisions in the process.
I am home but the turbo is on an overnight. Pray for Craig as he goes back and runs a couple of filters through and then flies it home within gliding distance of a safe landing sight.
Bottom line. Because of God’s grace I am home, the airplane will fly again and we both can continue to serve. For that I am truly thankful. Thanks for all of you who have remembered me before The Throne.
Blessings,
Jon Schmidt
