Cracked And Corroded

A casting crack was found visually during the course of an annual inspection. The crack is located on the forward end of the support casting (p/n 07416031), starting 0.25 inches from the outboard mount holes and ends within 0.25 inches of the mount holes on the inboard side of the casting.

Editorial Staff

Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

NAFI board chair-elect Karen Kalishek helped the owner of this Piper M350 with initial M350 training and also brought the airplane back to KGRB with him from Vero Beach, Florida. Courtesy Karen Kalishek

Key Takeaways:

Multiple aircraft models (Cessna 182G, 208B, Piper PA-28R-200) experienced critical structural cracking in components like main landing gear castings, inertial vane shafts, and aileron pulley brackets, often found during inspections.
A Cessna 208B Grand Caravan showed severe rudder torque tube corrosion in an area inaccessible during standard maintenance, leading to a suggestion for engineered inspection holes.
An alternator failure on a Cessna T206H Turbo Stationair was attributed to a disintegrated field brush, with the issue compounded by the component being exclusively available from the manufacturer.