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Old April 10th, 2008, 14:04   #7
FlyOrDie
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Join Date: May 2005
Location: Anchorage, Alaska
Posts: 407
Default Re: Engine failure...and restart

Quote:
Originally Posted by XcalibeR View Post

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?
Is your departure airport good weather? Is your departure airport in high terrain? Does the departure airport have emergency services? Do you have high terrain between you and your destination? There's too many unknowns to make a decision about if you need to turn around or not. I think whether you're 3 miles or 300 miles into a trip you still need to weigh what the airport has to offer you as far as weather and approaches and what sort of terrain you have to cross to get there. I think of terrain in this situation as risk, the higher the terrain the higher the risk of death if you have to do a forced landing.

It would make a huge difference if you were flying a turbine because you wouldn't have had the random shut down and restart. As far as the engine coming back to life I'd be in favor of feathering and leaving it that way because you no longer know what's happening in that engine and you don't want to get yourself into a situation in which you no longer have the option of feathering.

I'd classify this question as a bad one because of the engine coming back to life. Feather it and leave it that way and fly the airplane like you're on one. The airplane's already cheated on you so it'll likely do it again. In the DC6 we're taught this philosophy "When on 4 think 3, when on 3 think 2, when on 2 think 1, when on 1 wish you didn't have 30,000lbs of crap in the back."
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