Search Results for: Cessna 172

The following information is derived from the FAAs Service Difficulty Reports and Aviation Maintenance Alerts.

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An FAA certified repair station received a Janitrol cabin heater combustion head in exchange for a new part purchased by a customer. The trade-in combustion head had a hole approximately 0.4375 inches in diameter burned through it and the entire part was severely corroded.

Clearly cabin heaters are operated with minimal maintenance until they fail. A pressure decay test of this unit would have made its deficiencies obvious.

Cabin heaters are neglected during the summer, then expected to perform perfectly during the first cold snap. However, cabin heaters tha…

The following briefs were selected from the 223 preliminary reports filed with the NTSB in August 2001. Statements in quotes were taken directly from the NTSB documents. The information is subject to change as the investigations are completed.

Aug. 01, Sugar Grove, Ill.
Beech Bonanza
At 11:31 central time, a Beech A36 lost engine power and was damaged in the ensuing forced landing. The pilot was not injured. The flight was a post-maintenance test flight and the airplane had just come from its annual inspection. A ground run showed no anomalies, but during a post-accident inspection it appeared a fuel line had loosened enough to leak but not enough to come off its f…

The following information is derived from the FAAs Service Difficulty Reports and Aviation Maintenance Alerts.

The FAA Aircraft Certification Office has called again for inspecting the door handles of Beech Debonairs, Bonanzas, Barons and Travel Airs. The checks are required by AD 97-14-15, but pilots should also familiarize themselves with the POH section on actions required in the case of the door coming unlatched in flight.

Pilots should be aware that an open door creates a lot of noise and loose objects in the cabin can blow around vigorously.

When inspecting the door handles, ensure the door handles are installed correctly and that the door handle does not have a worn…

I went flying one Friday out of Farmingdale, N.Y., with Matt, a fellow pilot, and my friend John, who we picked up at White Plains. We had planned to go to Nantucket, Mass., for the day, but a front was moving in. Matt and I decided to meet at the airport and discuss it. When I got to FRG at 7:15 am he had already pre-flighted the airplane.

I didnt really want to go to Nantucket because I thought it would be difficult to beat the storms back. We talked it over and decided to pick up my friend at HPN, go to East Hampton to have lunch and return before the storms hit Long Island. The visibility was poor at FRG and it was IMC almost everywhere, so we filed IFR for the trip. Matt flew to HP…

For the average owner/pilot, its not hard to stay knowledgeable about the systems and procedures of the airplane youre flying. You fly not only the same make, model, and year, but the very same airplane every time you fly.

If youre lucky, you have a panel equipped the way you want it, with the avionics you chose, laid out in the pattern you found most convenient. Switches fall easily to hand and, after you learn them once, you know exactly how to operate each piece of equipment. You know how it works, how to make it do what you want, what it can do and what it cant.

Airline pilots are in much the same situation. Even though they dont fly the same airplane, there is much consiste…

There are large parts of this country where the terrain can impede your climb-out after takeoff. Sometimes it can even be a factor during en route climbs.

It takes just a quick glance through the NTSB database to find dozens of accidents in which the aircraft was unable to outclimb rising terrain. Those accidents reveal a number of common factors involved with this type of accident, in addition to the rising terrain. High density altitude carries much of the blame, to be sure, but so does restricted maneuvering area, adverse winds, heavy aircraft weights and relatively low power-to-weight ratios.

When most people think of rising terrain, they picture mountain peaks that rise nearly 1…

The following information is derived from the FAAs Service Difficulty Reports and Aviation Maintenance Alerts.

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The NTSB has recommended that initial and repetitive non-destructive inspections be accomplished on main landing gear spring struts of Cessna tailwheel airplanes.

These recommendations stem from an investigation of an accident in which the main gear spring failed at the upper axle attachment to the spring strut. This particular spring strut underwent major repair for previous damage prior to this accident.

FAA Service Difficulty Reports indicate that failures can occur in the gear spring struts at the axle attachment. Generally, such failures occur from corr…

The following information is derived from the FAAs Service Difficulty Reports and Aviation Maintenance Alerts.

Pilots of piston-powered twins know of the need to feather the prop on a dead engine, but occasionally the task does not get accomplished – sometimes through human error, sometimes through mechanical blockages.

In a recent accident, the pilot encountered a blocked propeller that could not be feathered.

The FAA began investigating the potential for additional accidents of a similar nature involving a propeller that could not be feathered either with or without engine rotation. In most pilot operating handbooks and Aircraft Flight Manuals, there are warnings of the…

The following briefs were selected from the 119 preliminary reports filed with the NTSB in September 2001. Statements in quotes were taken directly from the NTSB documents. The information is subject to change as the investigations are completed.

Sept. 01, Carson City, Nev.
Piper Dakota
At 19:53 Pacific time, a Piper PA-28-235 lost power while on approach to Carson Airport and crashed into the back yard of a residence. The pilot, the passenger and a resident of the property who was standing in the yard were seriously injured. The pilot told an FAA inspector he switched fuel tanks as he approached the airport and the engine lost power as he turned on base leg. Attem…

As summer takes hold, the days are getting long. Theyre also getting hot, which means the other thing that will be getting long is takeoff distance.

High temperatures – and therefore high density altitudes – affect every airplane, single-engine or multi, piston or jet. Higher elevations and bigger payloads only make the problem worse.

In a single-engine airplane, the loss of engine power makes the next step pretty easy to determine. If the engine failure happens on the ground, you will stop. If the failure happens in the air, you will land. Sir Isaac Newton assures us that this is so. Such outcomes are non-negotiable and cannot be changed.

In a multi-engine plane, it is not alway…