Forced landing on 36st YYC April 2018 - We got Video of it!

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Don't they look in the tanks on the walk around these days?


Maybe they should go back to having a flight engineer and make it  three crew like the good old days?


The flight engineer's duties would be checking to make sure the airplane will make it to the airport they are planning on flying to.

[Trey Kule]

To be frank, Chuck, I honestly can’t imagine how they could depart with about 40 gals total in the tanks,
A navajo, even without nacelle tanks hold almost 6 hours fuel IIRC, and the inboards alone about 3 ish.  It has been a long time so maybe I have forgotten

There has to be more to it surely. 

[David MacRay]

I just watched the video a few more times. There is no way the pilot could see the closest car just before they touched down. It was under and slightly behind. I guess it would have been going slower but looked pretty close.

Can you check the fuel with a stick like a Warrior? Or are the tanks not in inline with the fuel cap opening?

I keep thinking someone was supposed to fuel it up and somehow it was missed.

[Slick Goodlin]

I haven’t run the numbers on this case (and don’t intend to) but there have been fuel starvation accidents before simply because the pilot neglected to lean the mixture in cruise.  I haven’t flown a lot of piston engine airplanes with fuel flow gauges but those that have them show a startling difference in flow between full rich and leaned for cruise.  Remember that in flight planning their minimum fuel is most likely based on running lean.

[Trey Kule]

The lean/rich thing is a bit of a stretch for an hour long flight.
There is typically, in unmodified navajos, 2 fuel guages.  Left and right.  They read the fuel in the tank selected, that is either main or outboard onnthe side selected.  If the plane has nacelle tanks, they dont indicate and the fuel is not directly sent from them to the engines, but into the inboards.
Depending on the PA 31 model, there are some difference in the fuel pumps, but on all of them there is at least one backup for the main pumps..
Blowing a tank and switching is almost seamless, unless, maybe you let the engine die...never ever tried that.


A fuel leak is a possability as is mistakenly crossfeeding.
But again, it should not result in a double engine failure.
Are the fuelcaps on in the pictures?  Leaving them off would definitely be an issue
And I expect that kind of situation would have resulted in a bit different radio call

[David MacRay]

Leaving one cap off would be bad. Leaving more than one off sounds pretty suspicious. Could happen I guess.

It would be nice to know what really caused this. I'm not even having fun speculating.

[Colonel]

I'm not normally a gambler unless it's a sure thing, but
I have $20 that says excess air in the tanks.

(Keystone ... cough cough)

[Trey Kule]

It would appear that way.  The difference is that the keystone crew had lots of fuel to start and just kept pushing it, knowningly.
This was an hour long flight.  I find it almost impossible to imagine taking off with about 40 gals on board. Not noticing the fuel guages, and not diverting.


Which is why the fuel caps off popped up.  Took off with lots of fuel saw it streaming out and decided that was a bit of an embarrassment, so pushed on..


I have seen one cap left off a navajo main in the past.  Sucked a pile of fuel out.  Kid kept going and landed with the main on that side empty..I think the flight was about an hour as well..


The puzzling thing is the doulble engine failure....


I guess we will have to wait and see.  It could be a bit if the pilot claimed it was a fuel pump issue, requiring the TSB to conduct a whole bunch of tests..


But in the end, I too suspect than an excessively lean mixture caused the failures

[Fendermandan]

Main inboards are 56 gal capacity, with 1/2 tanks you cant see the fuel when looking in a tank. You have to trust your calculations. Will be interesting to hear wha'happend?

[Trey Kule]

I believe the mains capacity is twice what you posted.  Maybe you meant each of the mains holds 56 gal?
Or have I just forgotten.


You are right about the visual into the tanks.  Perhaps insteading of relying on your “calculations”, you could use your calculations to confirm the fuel guage readings.  It might prove to be less embarrassing to you some day.  And I never haveseen a set of Navajo fuel guages that were not pretty accurate.  Though I expect some young instructor with 25 hours in the right seat of one will have seen it....