By James Nova
After getting my private, commercial, and instrument tickets I thought it would be an extra benefit to get my multiengine rating as well. After all, if an engine fails, there would still be one engine to get me safely to an airport.
Training flight after training flight demanded engine-out procedures: identify, verify, feather, and fuel shutoff. I believed that I would be at least 148 years old before I could possibly experience a real loss of an engine. Oh, the innocence of the young and inexperienced.
The morning of my final practice flight before my checkride dawned severe clear, cool, and calm—a beautiful autumn day. It was my last flight in a Piper Aztec before the multiengine checkride. I had a great instructor and was confident that I could pass the checkride with flying colors (pardon the pun). I conducted a thorough by-the-book preflight, including dipping the tanks to be sure that the fuel on board was accurate. Everything was perfect. What could possibly go wrong? I should have thought, Danger, Will Robinson. But I didn’t think anything.
We took off from White Plains, New York (HPN) in the Piper Aztec to fly to Sullivan County (MSV) for single-engine work, touch and goes, and some IFR multiengine practice. My instructor, Al, was putting me through my paces so that I would be prepared for my checkride the next day. All was right with the world—so far.
After some VOR, NDB, and ILS work, we did three touch-and-go landings at Sullivan County. After the last touch and go we began to head back to White Plains, only 71 miles away. After about five minutes of flying, I turned to Al and said, “Al, do you smell something?” Al said no, so I kept flying the airplane. We were climbing to about 5,000 feet agl, and a minute or so later I again asked Al if he smelled anything. He again said no, so I began to look around for the source of the smell, which I knew for certain was something burning. I looked at all the gauges, looked all over the cockpit, looked under the instrument panel, under my seat, out the passenger side window, and still nothing. Finally, I looked out of my side window, and what to my wondering eyes should appear? Not reindeer, but flames pouring out of the left engine nacelle.
I saw the emergency equipment and I remember thinking, Am I happy or scared the equipment is there for me?I turned to my instructor and said, “We have a fire in the left engine.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked. These were to be the only words he spoke the entire rest of what would turn out to be a 20-minute flight, except for a brief comment just before landing.
I identified (not difficult), verified, and feathered the left engine, and shut off the fuel supply to it. I pushed the right rudder pedal to the floor, locked my right knee to ensure the rudder stayed deflected, and put in full right rudder trim, adding left aileron to have a 5-degree bank into the operating engine to prevent rolling. This was all as Al had instructed me (actually, hammered into my thick skull) in virtually every prior multiengine flight. But, this wasn’t practice. This was real. That realization provided some real urgency and laser-like focus.
The nacelle continued to burn.
I then tried a shallow dive to put out the flames. I knew this was a bit tricky on one engine and not a lot of altitude, but I felt I had no choice. I did not want the fire to attack the left-wing fuel tanks. Fortunately, the shallow dive (about 5 degrees nose down) only resulted in a loss of about 900 feet. Since we were still at about 4,000 feet agl, I took the risk. If the flames had continued, we would likely have gotten the fuel tank so hot it would explode. That certainly would have cut my lesson short and ruined my day.
Success. The flames went out, and I prayed they stayed that way.
After the flames were extinguished, I leveled off and headed directly to White Plains. I then called New York Center and calmly (ha!) declared an emergency, explained the situation, and asked that the fire trucks and other crash equipment should be deployed. They told us to squawk a discrete code, and said they had us on radar and to immediately contact the tower. We were still about 30 miles or so from White Plains. The tower gave us a straight-in, cleared to land, on Runway 16 (the longest runway). By this time my right leg was just about done (I need to exercise more), but I was darned if I was going to ask Al for help. After all, what if I had been alone? Nothing like real-world experience to imprint training forever, and experiencing asymmetric thrust for real is an eye-opener.
I flew the approach using the gentlest turns I could until lined up with Runway 16. As we were about three miles from the runway threshold, Al said the only other words he uttered the whole flight. He said, “Don’t forget to take out the rudder trim.” On long final I lowered the gear and gently began to reduce power and simultaneously relieve pressure on the rudder.
At the last moment, I saw the emergency equipment and I remember thinking, Am I happy or scared the equipment is there for me?
The landing was as good as I had ever done. Using the one engine we taxied off the active, shut down the engine, and got towed to the ramp.
After the airplane was inspected it was determined that the weld holding the exhaust collector pipe onto the exhaust manifold had broken, and the collector pipe had fallen to the bottom of the nacelle so that white-hot exhaust gases were being blown directly into the engine nacelle, causing the fiberglass nacelle to catch fire.
My multiengine checkride had been scheduled for the next day and I decided not to change it.
I passed.
James Nova is a commercial single- and multiengine airplane pilot living in Scottsdale, Arizona.