Each month in the back of this magazine, we chronicle recent accidents we hope are of interest to readers. A glance at a random month’s entries likely would reveal that a substantial portion of them involve total or partial failure of a piston single’s engine. Yes, there’s selection bias involved—we typically try to highlight the most educational accidents and incidents, and many in-flight engine failures don’t result in an event reportable to the NTSB.
But the evidence also points out that pilots frequently mishandle the event, perhaps just as they mishandled their fuel management, since many engine-failures can be traced to fuel starvation or exhaustion. To be sure, mechanical failures that are no fault of the pilot also can fail an engine. Regardless of the reasons, once the engine quits, it’s the pilot’s job to manage the airplane’s remaining energy and come to a safe stop. There are some considerations beyond just flying the airplane, but let’s talk about that first, if only to get it out of the way.
