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N4400K Follow-up?

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Aviator305

I'm New Here
Does anyone have any follow-up on the cause of the engine failure on N4400K last year?

I am a pilot/owner of a Piper Dakota, and I am interested in moving up to an RV-10 at some point in the next 3 years or so. I ran into this particular airplane and its proud owner on YouTube, and I was saddened to see that there was an incident (although thankful that the pilot was reportedly totally fine).

So, I am wondering if anyone has perhaps heard something more than is available on the web. If possible, I would like to know if anything was learned from the engine failure that may help prevent future incidents and allay my knee-jerk fear that perhaps I shouldn’t move up.

Thank you
 
I did not talk with the pilot directly. One of the fellow builders at SAS did. According to the pilot, he heard a pop, had some smoke in the cabin and decided to put the airplane down. He indicated the engine was running at touchdown. That is not what he told first responders. This is also reportedly not this pilot's first incident/accident.

I looked at the plane at Dodge County airport in Wisconsin where it was being stored awaiting the salvage auction. Between the damage that was done by the moving crew and the off-airport landing - about the only thing salvageable on the airframe were the tail feathers, the avionics and the engine possibly as a core. The prop was destroyed and the cylinders were rusty as the investigators left the sparkplugs out. No idea if the crankshaft was usable.

Evoke's paint was still beautiful. Such a shame.

Still waiting for the NTSB final report.
 
Aviator305 said:
I would like to know if anything was learned from the engine failure that may help prevent future incidents and allay my knee-jerk fear that perhaps I shouldn’t move up.

Thank you
Click to expand...

I congratulate you on exercising some caution and good judgement. I presume you are considering buying a used airplane, as opposed to building one yourself. These are ‘EAB’ (experimental-amateur-built) airplanes. So they are all different. Some may have great paint jobs but glaring mechanical defects. Some may be solid mechanically but with no paint! It’s very important to pay a knowledgeable person (often but not necessarily an A&P) who is familiar with RV10’s to inspect it before buying. Now, if I haven’t made you more apprehensive, I will say that a properly built RV10 - regardless of the paint quality - is a great flying machine. They commonly will carry a bit more weight than your current Piper (both with full fuel), but fly at 160 ktas on 10 gal/hr, or 170+ ktas on 13-14 gal/hr. And they climb like the proverbial bat out of h___.
 
Engine

I don't know why you would be concerned about possible engine issues. You are flying behind one of the lower horsepower parallel valve variants in your Dakota.
I have been flying behind those engines off and on since 1964. The only one that let me down was a mag problem, and that was a partial loss of power on a twin.
I do understand your interest in that accident. Some of the info in the prelim is weird. Reread the prelim very carefully and you should see what I mean.
 
Yes, in case I was not clear, the stock engine has a very good reputation. But it was installed by ‘amateurs’. I know of one seized engine (oil line never properly torqued), one in flight fire (engine fuel line never properly torqued), one prop strike due to a very nose-first ‘landing’, due to a control system bolt that was installed with no nut and fell out during the flare. All in -10’s. Most problems like this show up early. But not all. Just last week, the third, I think, owner of a two seat RV discovered that his aircraft was missing numerous wing attach bolts! I love my -10, and like to think that it’s safe, but the used market certainly has a ‘buyer beware’ component to it.
 
This is why if you aren't very familiar with airplanes you get a competent mechanic to do a pre buy. If I wasn't familiar myself I would insist on a very thorough condition inspection. A pre buy is just the first step.
 
Thank you all for your responses. I did not catch the interesting aspect of the preliminary report despite trying to read it carefully, but I will be on the lookout for the final.

Clearly, by your responses, this is a great community which is encouraging. For the time being, I will try to learn as much as possible about the RV-10 and heed the warnings and advice that you all shared regarding finding a competent mechanic and for sure will insist that at all is torqued to specs.
 
Aviator305 said:
Thank you all for your responses. I did not catch the interesting aspect of the preliminary report despite trying to read it carefully, but I will be on the lookout for the final.

Clearly, by your responses, this is a great community which is encouraging. For the time being, I will try to learn as much as possible about the RV-10 and heed the warnings and advice that you all shared regarding finding a competent mechanic and for sure will insist that at all is torqued to specs.
Click to expand...
I bought an RV-10 almost 2 years ago after following the same advice - I followed the VAF Forum for a few months, figured out/found a well known A&P from the Forum that was extremely familiar with RVs for the pre-buy inspection (in fact, he was the one that pointed me to the RV-10 I eventually bought that was advertised for-sale by a well known member in the Classifieds channel) and did my transition training with CFIs that I found through the Forum! To echo Bob's comment, the RV-10 is an amazing flying machine. A well-built RV-10 is (IMHO) hands-down the best 4-person go-places normally aspirated piston single when you consider speed, range, payload, CG flexibility, handling, ease of flying and price.

Vas
 
A couple of things worth mentioning. One is that in viewing the accident photo’s the RV10 is a strong aircraft. The wing damage is significant but structurally it held up well.
The other point is that in viewing the engine data that spark plug was inop for a long period of time. Combined with observation of plug color maybe into prior flights.
 
sailvi767 said:
A couple of things worth mentioning. One is that in viewing the accident photo’s the RV10 is a strong aircraft. The wing damage is significant but structurally it held up well.
The other point is that in viewing the engine data that spark plug was inop for a long period of time. Combined with observation of plug color maybe into prior flights.
Click to expand...
In the interest of learning...
Its a shame the data file is redacted as well - So we can't tell if any runup was done or not. One would imagine that the issue should have been obvious for an appropriately configured and alarmed EIS.
Viewing that data makes me shudder. #6 EGT is 200+ F higher than the rest for the entire data set. A mag check would have isolated this instantly. The plug condition description could be interpreted as this being the case for many hours - possibly multiple flights.
Cyl temps peaked at. 480F. Oil Temp at 236F. full power climb at Vy in the middle of summer.
Without being flippant, Im not surprised there was smoke.
If this was indicative of how the aircraft was operated generally, then it could well have just been a matter of time.
That's just abusing the aircraft to me.

Edit. Upon closer reading of the docket, the aircraft still had the plastic dummy SD cards in both of the GDUs. So it would appear the owner never recorded or analyzed any data. So maybe the data we have is all that the NTSB could get out of the PFD.
 
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From my neighbor - " I know this plane very well and the pilot to a lesser degree. If you look at the fuel flow data, it appears that takeoff fuel flow was 17 gph - much too low for an IO-540. I wouldn't be surprised if he took off with the mixture less than full rich - which would explain the high CHT's. Further, the #6 EGT being high from the start lends credence to the possibility that the #6 lower spark plug boot was disconnected for some time. Also wouldn't be surprised if he didn't do a proper run-up/pMag check."
 
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