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Old April 9th, 2008, 15:48   #1
XcalibeR
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Default Engine failure...and restart

You are piloting a recip twin along a relatively short 70 nm cross country. About 20 miles along the route, one of your engines fail. After doing your first quick emergency procedure (maintain directional control, full power, maintain Vyse, declare an emergency and let ATC know you'll be drifting down) and before feathering the engine, you decide to try to restart it, and sure enough, the engine comes back to life. Before the failure, you had no indications that anything was wrong. After the restart, the engine still does not seem to have any problems, at least any that you can see from the cockpit. Knowing that the engine had to have quit for a reason, what would you do?

Would you divert back to your departure airport, or keep going to the destination? Cancel the emergency with ATC, or keep it? Would it make a difference if the total distance was 300 nm, and the engine failed about 100 nm in? Would it make a difference if you were flying a turine instead of a recip?

For the sake of this scenario, assume both airports have the same services, ie. approaches, maintenance, fuel, ATC, etc. Also assume that you did not starve the engine of fuel, at least as far as you know (still plenty of gas in all tanks, no important valves closed, etc.).
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