Anticipating Engine Failure

Failure of a single-engine aircrafts lone powerplant is something students train for beginning with their first instructional flight. If they continue to certification, theyve studied the basics of how engines work, the air, fuel and ignition source they need to keep working, and at least some understanding of the signs theyre about to stop. Most trainers lack the kind of sophisticated engine instrumentation that technology has brought us over the last couple of decades, so many students still fly behind gauges the basic design of which can be traced back to pre-WWII automobiles.

Joseph E. (Jeb) Burnside

Monday, July 18, 2016 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Modern aircraft feature sophisticated engine monitors, yet pilots often fail to understand or effectively utilize their indications, creating a critical safety gap in responding to engine issues.
A fatal accident involving a Beech Bonanza illustrates this concern, where the NTSB attributed a total loss of engine power to detonation/preignition damage in a cylinder.
The NTSB concluded that a major contributing factor was the pilot's decision to continue flight despite likely observable warning signs of impending engine failure, underscoring the necessity of recognizing and acting on subtle engine distress.

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Failure of a single-engine aircraft’s lone powerplant is something students train for beginning with their first instructional flight. If they continue to certification, they’ve studied the basics of how engines work, the air, fuel and ignition source they need to keep working, and at least some understanding of the signs they’re about to stop. Most trainers lack the kind of sophisticated engine instrumentation that technology has brought us over the last couple of decades, so many students still fly behind gauges the basic design of which can be traced back to pre-WWII automobiles.

As they progress to more sophisticated aircraft, so, too, does the engine instrumentation become more capable. Today, the modern engine monitors available for aircraft can display many more parameters than the old gauges, and even present more details than a top-of-the-line luxury car. If there’s any problem remaining, it’s that pilots all too rarely don’t know how to use an engine monitor, or disregard its indications.