Originally published at: Watch a Cessna pilot land with no engine | Boing Boing
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Pilot vs. Instagram Scammer, who just happened to be wearing a sport parachute that isn’t made for sitting on as a pilot :-/
I mean, I figure you know this, but not everyone has heard of the incident or if they have knows the mightily suspicious details.
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As the pilots say, any landing you can walk away from is a good one. This is more than good.
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I have a subscription to flightradar24 and was able to find this flight. The data seem incomplete, though. It doesn’t show the landing on the runway like we saw in the video, and the final altitude is around 700 ft, but the ATC reported the elevation of the runway at 200 or so feet. Looking again, the origin isn’t at an airport, but some rando location NE of Tacoma. Hmm.
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Are you suggesting it’s all a scam an he’s still up there hovering at 500 ft above the runway?
Makes sense, seeing as his engine was out and he couldn’t fly down.
(Alternately, flight radars report elevations of older small planes like this one based on what the Mode C transponder is reporting, and the radar won’t see it once the plane starts getting too close to the ground and is below the radar’s coverage.)
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I drive a car that old with a flat 6 engine, but I don’t think I’d fly a plane that old. For this reason.
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When your engine stalls in a car it falls right out of the sky.
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This was nicely done. Nice and calm.
I was this guy one day in 2006, but the engine came apart at just 600 feet after takeoff as I turned downwind at Boeing Field Seattle. I glided like a winged rock under a jet that tookoff behind me.
Made it back to the runway, greeted by fire trucks. Tower told me to get out quick - lots of smoke I couldn’t see because of the breeze.
The first fireman on the scene rushed up and to my surprise asked me what my relationship was with my (his) lord a savior, because it was Jesus in the cockpit flying the airplane. I asked him to just please pay attention to the fire that looked like was about to happen. Some people just can’t help themselves.
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And then is offering to park the plane wherever. Calm as hell.
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I used to occasionally fly with a friend that had a small plane. One of his mantras was to always be looking for a place to land.
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As an amateur mechanic I still feel qualified to call that Catastrophic engine failure. I assume it must have thrown a rod but man the whole engine case just blew to pieces. Lucky it didn’t fall out of the engine compartment.
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Man, that engine detonated!
An excellent landing is one where the aircraft can be used again.
Airplanes are generally better maintained than cars & the engines refurbished after x number of hours.
The newest B-52 in the Air Force is about the same age as this aircraft.
“My name’s not Jesus!”
Yeah, that’s drilled into you from day one.
That, and keep your head on a swivel, so other aircraft don’t surprise you.
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I could be wrong, but I believe sites like flightradar24 get all there data from ADS-B and not radar.
ADS-B (which, absent a very narrow exception, is mandatory for all planes since 1/1/2020) reports altitude based on what the plane knows. If in the chaos of the situation, he set the pressure wrong on the altimeter (even though his read-back was correct), that could account for the 500’ difference.
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The flight school that I used to fly with once lost a plane when the engine seized up on one of the first flights after an engine overhaul. The mechanic had accidentally left a temporary plastic plug in place that melted, allowing all the oil to drain out in midair. Fortunately it was a freeway landing with no injuries, but a wing clipped a light pole as the plane was coming to a stop, so the plane was totaled.
So the frequent engine overhauls are mostly a good thing but can occasionally cause their own problems…
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TIL. Guess I’ll need to get caught up on all the latest rules if and when I ever get current on my license again.
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A car goes into the shop when there’s a problem. A plane goes into the shop when the Hobbs (engine hours) says it’s been used for 100 hours. It gets thoroughly inspected and any issues have to be addressed.
Plane engines can last an exceptionally long time because small problems get discovered and rarely have the chance to become big problems.
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Your Jesus, I like him very much, but he no help with emergency procedures.
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