A pilot takes off in his Mooney and loses the engine at about 400-500 feet. Here is video of the event taken from inside of the aircraft. (YouTube video.)
If you are an AOPA member, you can see a slideshow with video and commentary here. (Sorry, it’s a members-olny link.)
The AOPA site makes it clear: Do not do this. The pilot advises people not to do this. If your engine fails on takeoff, land straight ahead. But this guy got lucky.
Looking at the airport layout on the AOPA animation (not shown on the YouTube one) there is a crossing runway. Had the pilot executed a left turn instead of a right turn, he would have had to have made a much shallower turn. Also, there were no trees to clear. Still, it worked out… for him. The AOPA presentation mentions two fatal crashes that occurred when pilots were practicing engine-out-on-takeoff procedures. (Incidentally, one was at the airport at which I learned to fly. We did a practice engine-out at WJF, and I judged that I had the height and pulled it off. My instructor reminded me that while I was successful, that was not the recommended procedure.)
He made 3 turns, one back across the runway, and a second one back to the left to line up which he started too late, and which he over shot, and a final turn to correct that – that was the one which looked really dangerous to me. I was surpised he didn’t put his wingtip into the ground on that one.
But it looked like he had plenty of space to do what he did, had he not made his second turn so badly.
How high should you be before considering such a move?
Oh yeah, how exactly do you practice the correct procedure, which is landing straight ahead when the runway is behind you? Are you referring to practising deadstick landings, or having your engine go out during takeoff?
You don’t practice the land-straight-ahead procedure. It’s too dangerous to practice (a common conundrum in flight training). You just talk about it in the hope that you’ll remember what to do if the time comes.
“The Impossible Turn” is a common name for it. Basically, you simply can’t make a 180 and land on the same runway, in the opposite direction, from less than 600-800 feet or so, depending on the aircraft and loading. And that’s if you’ve practiced it recently, and you don’t waste any time in responding. You do have some margin if you’re not picky about the “runway” thing and just settle for crashing back on the airport grounds, where the emergency equipment can reach you more easily. But don’t stall in the turn or you’ll spin, and even a test pilot who’s been doing it all day can’t recover from a spin in less than 1100 feet or so. Stall speed goes way up in steep banks like the one you’ll be making.
I tried that with an instructor once, the guy caught me by surprise during a flight review, and, well, verified that altitude for myself. In reality, I wouldn’t even think of trying it from less than pattern altitude (1000 feet, normally) without a really big airport behind me. Just pick something soft and inexpensive straight ahead and set up to hit it slowly.
Making S-turns lets you lose a little more altitude than taking a straight line. He landed pretty close to the end of the runway; the turns may have been intentional so he didn’t overshoot.
Which makes the event even stranger. From what I understood, returning to the airport (after losing an engine on takeoff) is discouraged because you’re likely to come up short, not that you’ll overshoot. A Mooney is a pretty high-performance plane, though. Short takeoff and fast climb put him in the position he was in.
When I took my lessons, every now and then the instructor would reach over and pull the throttle all the way out to simulate an engine failure. It’s kinda like taking your foot off the gas pedal. I’d go through the engine-out procedure, and then throttle up and away we go. Part of the procedure is to pick an emergency landing site, and a few times we glided down pretty close to it. The idea was to get some experience with the gliding range of the aircraft, and to run the drill long enough to know if I’d make my emergency site or not.
The best site for an emergency landing is an airport. None of my instructors ever pulled the throttle back on takeoff, but we did talk about it. As tempting as it is to have that nice, smooth runway behind you, you’re probably not going to make it.
Oh, and does every little county airport have emergency crash equipment? Some of them don’t even have towers, I thought, though I guess this one did (if that’s who he was talking to on the radio).
I learned to fly in the desert. The way we practiced was that the instructor informed me and the tower before we started our roll that we would have a power failure at 400 feet on take-off. At 400 feet, he had me pull off the power. Straight ahead was a whole lot of flat desert. The idea was that I would set myself up for a landing in it and then put the power back on once the glide was set up and climb back to pattern altitude. But the first time, I decided 400 feet was enough for a 180. (I’d noted in maneuvers at altitude that I could turn the Skyhawk without losing too much height.) So I went for it and made for the taxiway. (Since it’s offset, I wouldn’t have to turn all the way back to the runway.) Once we had the taxiway ‘made’, power came back on and we turned away from the traffic pattern to rejoin it upwind.
Again: While I could have made a safe landing on the taxiway (that time), my instructor made sure I knew that that was not the preferred option.
I should note that instructors seem to be more willing to chop the power in helicopters than in airplanes (in my experience), and that the ‘engine failure’ will endure until you make a power recovery three feet off the ground. It helps that you don’t need an airport to practice this.
Other factors that may have helped:
Cold winter air gives better engine and aerodynamic performance
Headwind (to the extent there was one) would have put him closer to the field at a given altitude
Mooney is “cleaner” than many single-engine aircraft - so it would have better glide performance
I thus think it’s a bit of a stretch to classify this as impossible, or even extremely unlikely - just call it good piloting.
Obviously it’s not impossible. I don’t even think it’s ‘unlikely’. But it does go against doctrine, and there are a lot of dead pilots whose last maneuver was to try to turn back. I just think that ‘Impossible Turn’ is a better title than ‘Turning Back Is Not A Good Idea, But This Guy Pulled It Off’.
The pilot did have a lot of things going for him, which are enumerated in the AOPA slideshow.
While you don’t practice to the point of landing off-airport, I regularly pull the throttle on students after takeoff from a long runway. They then land straight ahead with runway remaining.
I do this carefully, and wouldn’t at all if I weren’t convinced of the value this type of practice provides. A lot of people freeze up in this situation and seem to instinctively try to hold a level attitude. That will kill you rather quickly as the plane reaches its critical angle of attack.
So I drill into students that you pitch down, for god’s sake don’t let the plane to stall, deploy flaps if able and land straight ahead.
Way back when, one of the dual cross country routes I liked had several unmarked grass strips along the way. I would pull the plug on the student right directly over head of one and let them do the drill and pick a place for their emergency landing and get real low and then ask them why they did not pick the airport that had been right under them.
The first time my instructor did this to me I was very proud of the fact that I reacted perfectly, the moment was rather spoiled however when the bloody engine hesitated and spluttered when I applied throttle and it looked for a moment like the simulated emergency was turning into a real one. So I continued with my emergency landing while my instructor got the engine going and pulled out with my wheels just above the grass.
I hadn’t even thought about the danger, my only thoughts at the time were to get the plane down correctly and dodge the cows on the left side of the field.
We used to practice engine failures after take-off. The instructor would call “practice engine failure”, pull the power off, and you were supposed to set up for a glide approach to a suitable paddock ahead (or the runway if there was any left, but normally there wasn’t). You’d continue the approach until the instructor was satisfied that you would have made a safe landing and he’d let you have the power back. You got to know all of the good paddocks around the airfield.
A turn back is obviously not impossible in certain circumstances but I don’t think it should be your first choice as part of your take off emergency plan.
There was an Australian Tiger Moth pilot with a wing-walker (his wife I think) who had an engine failure after take-off, turned back, stalled, crashed, and burned. He made it but she didn’t.
He wasn’t trying to make it to the original runway which would have been a 360 maneuver . He landed with a 270 degree bank on a cross runway so it was more doable. He did overshoot it though so he increased the likelihood of a wingtip strike. If there isn’t anywhere to land straight ahead then getting it near a runway usually gives you something level to land on.
I’ve been in a twin with an engine failure right off the runway and it was interesting.
This has gotten me to think in terms of flying a 45 degree right-of-runway heading as soon as the wheels are off and then a parallel heading as a deliberate set up for an emergency landing. It will be a standard landing pattern and instead of running the downwind long to lose altitude you would just turn base and final at the same time.
I disagree - the best site for an emergency landing is the spot that gives you the highest chance of survival. Extra points if you’re able to walk away and re-use the airplane afterwards. A runway or airport behind you that you can’t physically get back to is useless, whereas a field ahead of you, while containing obstacles, may be your best spot. As an example.
(My emergency landing wasn’t due to engine failure, but it was into a farm field. Nobody hurt, nothing broke, and they were able to re-use the airplane with no repairs needed)
And that’s an underrated maneuver. A deliberate ground loop is a very effective way of getting stopped in a short distance without a great risk of injury. The old grass-field biplane guys used to do it routinely.
Besides, why worry about damage to the airplane as well as to yourself? I’ve heard instructors say that your first thought in an emergency should be “The insurance company owns the airplane now.”
No. If an accident happens at a place like that you call 911, just like for a car accident.
It does sound like there’s a tower at that airport, there certainly are small airports with towers. On the other hand, it’s not explicit there’s a tower from that clip, either. Even where there are no towers radios still work and pilots talk to each other. In fact, airports without towers often have quite a bit of chatter as pilots talk to each. A lot of that is confirming who is going where, who’s in line for a runway, who’s about to take off, who’s approaching to land… and who is declaring an emergency.
I’ve known several pilots who attempted the “Impossible Turn” after an engine failure at take off. Most of them died in the attempt. Of the one survivor I know, he’s going to be getting around in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. The guy in the OP’s clip is VERY fortunate as well as being a skilled pilot.
Not a pilot, just a aircraft nut but it seems to me that after watching the youtube video from the cockpit that one factor that may have helped this guy out was that the engine lost most of its power but was still turning untill after he touched back down or was that just the prop windmilling? Kind of a side question most Mooney aircraft are equipted with constant speed props, if the engine stops does the prop feather automaticly?
