OT #2 - True story - Bad Engine Maintenance

[Mac_Paint 35]

I've a colleague at work who, through other colleagues, was sent this bit of interesting information. The original came as a powerpoint file so I'am going to cut and paste.Forwarded from Deutschland

[Guest]

Hmmmm. Now I know why I have this gut instinct that questions the safety standards that some of the world's airlines use...On a similar note:Recently one of the students in the aviation program here at St. Cloud State took one of our 152s up to an airport about 50 miles north of here (the plane I soloed in, actually). Somehow, the guy managed to strike the prop on the runway and bent both tips back pretty good. I saw it in the hangar when I went flying earlier this week. OUCH.Wednesday, I talked to the guy who flew it BACK here to St. Cloud, bent prop and all. He said they had to get special permission from the FAA to do it, but other than that, it flew fine. Go figure.< Eric >St. Cloud RegionalKSTC

[Guest]

All I can say is... YIKES!!! :-eek Rich@KLEWBeige G3 233 MHz DT rev.1 G4 400 MHz NewerTech upgrade OS 9.2.2 384 MB RAM ATI Radeon Mac (PCI) Thrustmaster FCS/WCS

[Jet Tech 31]

Come on, Three out of Four ain't bad is it. :-dohKind of amazing how much damge a little birdy can due to a high speed fan.RegardsPaul:-cool

[RandallR 444]

Here's 2 quick ones from my own flying experience:1) Unknown to my FBO, a mechanic in St.Louis replaced the generator on a fairly new Cessna 172 with an automobile generator. This otherwise nice, fully-instrumented aircraft was then delivered to my FBO. A couple weeks later, I was scheduled to use it for a dual cross-country. We had planned to stay overnight at our destination, but that was cut short when a bad ice storm headed our way. Not wanting to be caught away from home for a couple days, we ran to the airport and my instructor filed instrument while I circled over our departure city.We lost everything (instruments, lights, radio dim) about 45 min. later. Center began to vector us into O'Hare as we declared an emergency. As we followed the radar operator, we began turning off as much of the extra equipment as possible - and the remaining instruments lit back up! We cancelled the emergency and proceeded safely to our destination. Our mechanic discovered the generator a couple days later when the ice was chipped off the plane. It had handled routine VFR flights OK, but when we fired up all the rest for real IFR, it eventually gave up.2) On a very cold, wintry day, the mechanic had bolted these aluminum covers over the front air intakes of the Cessnas and other small aircraft. They may be air-cooled engines, but zub-zero temperatures plus altitude requires a little extra protection, I guess. The mechanic had misplaced the cover for my plane that day, so he used masking tape to cover the intake - it took about 5 pieces of wide tape, then he put on several layers of the same. When I found this during my walk-around, he stated that everything should be fine - not too worry!Minutes later we took off and I began to run the pattern - nothing like doing cross-wind touch-and-goes off of 3 inches of snow on a turf runway! :-) After about 3 circuits, we began to smell something hot - something burning. We were on downwind at the time and figured our best bet was to complete the circuit and set her down. A few seconds later black smoke came billowing out of the cowling - it was blinding (and very hard on the heart).We managed to squeek her over the threshold, pull off, kill the engine and run like h**l! There was so much smoke we figured we had a good fire going! After the smoke dissipated, we opened her up to find a solid mass of melted tape - it was probably sucked right into the engine as soon as I opened the throttle. Needless to say, the mechanic (who really was a pretty competent guy) was persona non grata for a couple of days!All of this pales of course, to the foolishness shown by the maintenance crew of that 747.

[Mac_Paint 35]

Wow! Glad your still with us!Pete

[Guest]

Not a turbine buff myself, just what are the blades made of?Thanks,http://flytsim.itgo.com/sigi.jpg

[Mac_Paint 35]

On the Spaceshuttle, we use a superalloy called Mar-M-246. On commercial airliners I'd guess a Titanium alloy.Pete

[Jet Tech 31]

Well now that we have seen the results of Poor Maintenance, I thought we should even up the plate with a interesting pilot story!Seems and Airline crew some years ago, flying a DC-9 lost an Engine Generator enroute to Chicago. When the Generator began to fail, certain items in the cockpit began to cycle ower as the power transfered back and forth between the two generators. This apparently spooked the crew who reached up to disconnect the generator, however they failed to identify the correct generator and disconnected the only operating generator onboard. The great thing about the generator disconnect system on a turbine engine is that once disconnected, it can't be re-connected until back on the ground with the engine shutdown. Now flying in the dark, they declared and emergency and landed in Iowa. Unfortunately, without electrical power, the cabin pressurization system failed to depressurize the A/C and after a successful landing, they were unable to open any of the doors. The crew, apparently not aware that the outflow valves had a manual overide cable in the cockpit to open them, opted to attempt to get out using the crash axe. The captain attempted to break out the cockpit sliding window (which is about 4-5 inches thick) with the axe. Needless to say the axe did not penetrate the plexiglass and bounced back and hit the captain in the head. Eventually a mechanic came forward who was a non-rev on the flight and showed the crew the manual depressuriztion and everyone got off the plane without injury (except the captain). Paul:-cool

[RandallR 444]

Good Lord, that's unbelievable! :-lol Of course, there are also the tragic events where some someone attempts to take off with all of the aileron and rudder locks in place (with the flags trailing in the wind).We also had a C.A.P pilot in a Tri-Pacer who had never landed on a turf runway before. It was late Spring and there was a huge mud bog smack-dab in the middle of the runway. Knowing that it's not really necessary (or always appropriate) to land in the middle of the runway, all of us locals simply toched down to the side. But this guy set her right down on the brown spot - needless to say, the phrase "stops on a dime" doesn't even describe the event. ;) The mains hit and stuck, the nose wheel slammed into the bog and stopped - whereupon the rest of the plane continued on - she just flipped right over on her back.The guys were bruised but OK - had to get a crane to lift the plane out of the mud.