Relay-Version: B 2.11 6/12/87; site scorn Path: uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!tel From: tel@cbnews.att.com (Thomas E. Lester) Newsgroups: rec.aviation Subject: Near incident Message-ID: <1990Sep5.171759.12741@cbnews.att.com> Date: Wed, 05 Sep 90 10:17:59 PDT Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 89 In the spirit of rec.aviation I will relate a recent incident that nearly ended in a disaster. Luckily it didn't. Last weekend I was flying a cherokee 140 (pa28) on a local sight seeing tour for some friends visiting us. I departed Port Columbus (CMH) and flew to Newark (ohio) with the first plane load. I met my wife there and we were to exchange passengers, since there were more than 3 peopple that wanted the "grand tour". I did a full pre-takeoff check, including a static run up to check max. engine rpm. All went normally. As I was taking off the engine suddenly dropped power and rpm to approx. 2000rpm and NO climb ! This happened beyond the abort point. Ahead was a set of power lines and trees. The speed dropped to about 70mph indicated. By pulling the nose up to nearly a stall I cleared the power lines and trees and continued to skim the trees. I then leaned the mixture to get peak rpm and managed a slow climb. I gently circled and was able to gain enough altitude to get back to the field. Checking mixture showed that full rich KILLED THE ENGINE ! (At these low elevations I lean the engine slightly for take off) So did carb. heat !! Luckily I did NOT try these at the tree top level. I didn't check mags. The engine ran smoothly, just no power. As I gained altitude, the engine gradually recovered and began developing normal power. I then proceeding to make a normal landing. The kids in the back never knew how close we were to potential disaster. The adult passenger remained calm and quiet after I asked her to. (She asked a question, I responding only with "quiet, please.") History: This had happened one other time to another pilot about a month earlier (but at altitude). He did not try carb heat. We checked the plane thoroughly (?) and found nothing. It was test flown with no indication of problems. It was then flown several times in the interim without any repetition of the problem. We had written the first occurence off as carb ice (high humidity day). Last night we went to tear down the plane with the intention that either we find something definite or do a major. We found .......(drum roll maestro)........ The muffler baffle had broken loose internally and could shift to shut off the exhaust ! The questions I am now asking myself include: Was I as proficient as I could be for the given scenario ? (No!) (But will I ever be ? I'll try to get better) Should I have landed in a corn field rather than risk a continued climb ? (given the outcome I guess I did okay). Should I have checked carb heat and mags while raking leaves with my wheels ? Given what happened when I did check them at altitude, I'm glad I didn't. Recent net discussions seem to indicate "check them" but at such critical times, I was VERY reluctant to take ANY risk. Even the small rpm drop of single mags would have put us in the trees. As I stated, I am relating this as a point of education and discussion. Please keep comments constructive. Quit frankly I am still a little shook by it. Hearing of the double fatality the next day (out west) due to loss of power on takeoff didn't help any. I am looking forward to getting the plane back in the air and "getting back in the saddle". I do intend to study minimal power configurations a LOT more thoroughly than I had. I also will be more demanding on maintenance in the future. It doesn't just happen to "other people" !!!! Thanks for listening.