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Details Emerge in Fatal Beach Accident

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The National Transportation Safety Board has released its initial report regarding an accident that occurred on July 27 in Venice, Florida, in which a man and his daughter were killed. The two people were playing in shallow water at a local beach when a Piper Cherokee made a forced landing. The pilot and his passenger were not injured, but the four-seat airplane was substantially damaged, according to the report. (www.flyingmag.com) More...

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gmcmanus
gmcmanus 1
This sounds like a fuel servo issue or less likely a vapor lock scenario.
Bernie20910
Bernie20910 1
From the article: "...after straightening the bent propeller blade, ran the engine up to 2,000 rpm"

There's no way I would consider doing that as "safe". Replace the prop, yes, but straighten it and run it up to 2k? I'd worry about the metal being fatigued from being bent and straightened, and possibly coming apart. Wouldn't do the engine much good either.

Or is it common practice to straighten bent props and reuse them?
flyingj481
flyingj481 4
I suspect there may be a bit of 'journalist aviation' in the reporting of this. The NTSB probably put a new prop on the engine to test its systems and verify any other problems that could have caused the engine to quit.

Many times it seems lucky that a jornalist will correctly identify it as an airplane, never mind technical details.
avihais
They normally do it in a test room safe and sound in their toughened glass room. Others a test rig well away from harm (seen some with a prop cage)
jdriskell
I was always taught to fill the tanks after a flight in order to reduce the chances of condensation forming within the tanks. If this aircraft hadn't been flown for 3 months and the pilot took off with tanks 1/2 full, I'll bet that engine failure resulted because it had problems burning the water in the fuel. Pilot error!!

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