When my dad bought a Skyhawk, the FBO delivered it to him. On the flight from San Diego to Lancaster, about six inches of a propeller blade departed the aircraft. This caused violent shaking. The pilot shut it down immediately and made an emergency landing at MCAS El Toro. I was told that such shaking would tear the engine off of its mounts, or tear the mound off the firewall. This would do bad things to the weight-and-balance.
How many times have single-engine airplanes crashed, when the direct cause was the engine departing the aircraft? (By ‘direct cause’, I mean the engine breaks off; not what caused the engine to break off.)
Long ago, the engine actually came off a small plane like a Cub Coup or something, the pilot was quick to put the nose almost straight down so he would have airspeed, controls, , etc. to keep from just falling like a leaf & he got on the ground without dieing. Back in the 30’s maybe. Have seen it referenced some back in the day.
Know personally, I have flown the plane actually, of a PT-22 with a Kinner 5 cyl that was on the way to Oshkosh & threw a full ½ of it’s wooden blade. Ripped the engine off but it hung between the gear legs by the magneto ‘P’ leads. Ended up inverted in a corn field due to some great flying. The wife, the passenger, cut he head when she opened her harness and fell out & hit her head on something & got a small cut. No other injuries except to the aircraft.
I know of some light twins that literally lost an engine but of course they are not a single engine.
Prolly some more that were never recorded back in the real old days but not many where the whole engine came off the airplane completely. They were probably mostly fatal & maybe no one actually figured or cared as to the actual cause.
I would think that some came off ( blown off, etc. ) single engine aircraft during the wars where propeller driven single engine aircraft were used. All kinds of weird things happened during those.
Nah, he was just doing an inflight restart the hardest way he could. he he he
Some where there is an old picture of a plane with a walkway out to the single engine.
Several of the older BIG multiengine aircraft had passage ways in the wing so that mechanics could access the back or the inboard engines & a few you could even get to all 4.
Loss of the engine itself as opposed to just engine power would normally throw the center of gravity so far off as to render the aircraft unrevocerable (pretty much impossible to fly).
