My guess is these plane took off with low fuel levels or unbalance tank to start with. Fuel controller were left to manual and got the problem worst.
Pretty hard to be out of trim in the G1000 TBMs as you have rudder trim that keeps the ball in the center when flying on autopilot.

I do get a CAS message sometime if I took off on the lower level tank and get more than 15 gal fuel unbalance. Easy fix just switch to the higher level tank and it fix itself pretty quick.







The one engine failed to run. The crash occurred because the one engine didn’t run. This is not the only crash in a TBM that may be due to mis-trimmed condition causing fuel unporting and engine failure. It may have happened to my friend in his 850 in VFR conditions, leading to a crash and severe injuries. Just a guess, but you have to wonder whether TBM’s are unusually sensitive to lateral trim imbalance for the uncoordinated condition not to be so extreme that it was noticed by two pilots, but still be able to starve the engine of fuel. An aircraft engine should not quit for a non-extreme ball out of center.

Cars sold in 2016 in the US:

Toyota Camry - 388,618
Toyota Corolla - 378,210
Honda Civic - 366,927
Porsche Cayman - 3,590
Audi R8 - 495
Porsche 918 - 1

If you choose to drive a Camry I won't argue with your choice. I drive something a lot less popular.

If a Porsche 918 crashes into a wall due to an inexperienced driver, does that make it unsafe?

If a Porsche 918 crashes into a wall due to an inexperienced driver, does that make it unsafe?

Potentially, the car could be dangerous due to it's speed and lack of automated safety features.

You can fix those by getting a Tesla

Interesting- and good to know. Pilatus made this a priority and they focused their efforts accordingly and successfully.

Just quickly looked through the 49 serious accidents for the TBM listed in the Aviation Safety Database. Here's my breakdown:

18 disorientation/loss of control during flight
15 landing loss of control/gear failure
6 engine related
6 controlled flight into terrain
4 other

I also noticed five accidents where the pilot lost control upon application of full power on go-around attempts.

Not maligning the TBM, just to be clear!

Here's the breakdown for the 43 accidents for the PC-12:

9 disorientation/loss of control during flight
15 landing loss of control/gear failure
8 engine related
4 controlled flight into terrain
7 other

No accidents where the pilot lost control upon application of full power on go-around attempts.

Nathan

give me the same breakdown for the MU2.

I've been working on that. Here's the breakdown for the 47 accidents for the MU-2 since 1998:

6 disorientation/loss of control during flight
15 landing loss of control/gear failure
5 engine related (including running out of fuel)
10 controlled flight into terrain
11 other

Since 2008 when the SFAR was implemented (12 accidents):

0 disorientation/loss of control during flight
8 landing loss of control/gear failure
0 engine related (including running out of fuel)
2 controlled flight into terrain
2 other

If a Porsche 918 crashes into a wall due to an inexperienced driver, does that make it unsafe?

Sam, we may have to get you to some anger management classes or up flying.......


We do know that all planes can kill you.

Much of this discussion has merit when it comes to understanding the systems etc. on each aircraft type.

Fuel for example, in the PC12, if there is a fuel imbalance it automatically balances it for you, meaning the airplane automatically switches on the pump from the fullest tank and pumps it to the emptier tank.

Does this make it better/worse than a TBM/MU2/MerlinIIIC ( )/441 I don't know. Just chatting and presenting the values for the airplane that I know and fly.

I'm gonna do some flying with John L as well as some flying with some of the MU2 fellas. It will be awesome to get feedback from both sides on the merits/de-merits of each airplane......

I love arguing with Mike C, Martti, Crandall, Klassen, etc. It improves my knowledge base, potentially theirs, so I think discussions like this are good and healthy. They're all passionate and crazy about aviation, just like me!!

Frankly it makes me think about my aeronautical decision making, and that's a good thing.

Just a couple of comments on points raised about TBM's in the last couple of pages (and from a relatively inexperienced TBM pilot).

How you can fly a TBM uncoordinated for very long is beyond me. Every time you make a power change you have to retrim or you'll be flying in a roll. It's more obvious than any aircraft I've ever flown. If your automatically fuel balancing system gets out of whack you'd have the same issue I expect. Maybe you get the leans in the clouds but flying in the clear its extremely noticeable.

There has been a lot of conversation about torque roll in the TBM. During initial training we went to altitude, dirtied it up, slowed it down and then jammed (well, advanced in a rapid, yet courteous fashion) the throttle forward. No big deal. No rudder heroics required. On typical go arounds, and I've done them in practice and for real in IMC, you just advance the throttle smoothly and again, no issues. I'm not sure whether that's because of the vortex generator they added (and retrofitted), or other aerodynamic improvements (Marc will know he's the expert) but I think the issue is either largely corrected or overstated a bit.

The accident record is far worse for the TBM than the PC12 and the only thing that makes reasonable sense to me is the disparity between pro flown and owner flown between the two aircraft. There are a lot more pro flown PC 12's as a per cent of their fleet I believe. Pilots, as always, kill more airplanes than the other way around.

Please carry on. I'm learning and I appreciate it.

The TBM self balances as well. Sixty seconds on the ground and 10 minutes in the air. Unless it fails of course. Or the pilot forgets to turn on the system.

Sam, we may have to get you to some anger management classes or up flying.......


We do know that all planes can kill you.

Much of this discussion has merit when it comes to understanding the systems etc. on each aircraft type.

Fuel for example, in the PC12, if there is a fuel imbalance it automatically balances it for you, meaning the airplane automatically switches on the pump from the fullest tank and pumps it to the emptier tank.

Does this make it better/worse than a TBM/MU2/MerlinIIIC ( )/441 I don't know. Just chatting and presenting the values for the airplane that I know and fly.

I'm gonna do some flying with John L as well as some flying with some of the MU2 fellas. It will be awesome to get feedback from both sides on the merits/de-merits of each airplane......

I love arguing with Mike C, Martti, Crandall, Klassen, etc. It improves my knowledge base, potentially theirs, so I think discussions like this are good and healthy. They're all passionate and crazy about aviation, just like me!!

Frankly it makes me think about my aeronautical decision making, and that's a good thing.