A friend of mine deadsticked into a pasture last Sunday. I hope this video link works. They had to disassemble the plane to get it back to the airport, but only apparent damage is to the engine and cowling.

The most puzzling thing is the cylinder studs don't appear to be stripped. Pilot says EGT spiked off the chart right before the jug blew. Engine is a Lyc O-540 with 1200SMOH.

Link: https://tinyurl.com/ybjcav22

Was the pasture field right underneath him? I've been told the Cherokees glide like a brick, although the one I had did well after I put VG's on it.

I don't know. But here's an overhead of where he put it down. He said it all happened very quickly.

Your right, the studs aren’t even stripped, where are the nuts that held the cylinder?

I think those cows are looking for supper

Thats not even the angle valve 540 which have had a few more instances of failure.

When and were did he have the engine overhauled? I had the same thing happen on two Navajos about 5-6 years ago. Same cylinder

I'm sure he knows... but many insurance policies will pay to get you back to an airport if you land off-airport with no damage.

Some have a $10kish limit, but at least pays the recovery costs, not the engine breakdown. Not all policies have this but many do.

Maybe he already did this, just thought Id mention.

Tj

uhh, so how did the cylinder come off with intact threads on all those studs. I can see how multiple nuts could loosen but one would think you'd have a massive oil loss problem well before the cylinder actually came off. Interested to hear the theories on this one.

Thanks, yes I'm pretty sure he contacted the insurance company. Any policy that doesn't have that is encouraging a total loss, in my opinion. He will have to cover the overhaul out of pocket, as opposed to a gulf ditching for example.

Where he landed looked pretty smooth, but he says even with a new engine it would have been hard to get back in the air from that site.

So the nuts themselves gave way or fractured? The flange looked intact in the brief period it was visible in the video.

Forget about time SMOH, was there any recent cylinder work ?

No doubt there was and no doubt the cylinder nuts were simply not torqued at all.

I wonder if the marker that’s used to show if the nuts have moved was used on the assembly of this motor and specifically this cylinder? Looking at the other cylinders it doesn’t appear so, but can’t be certain.

If so, was this part of his preflight inspection routine? It is on mine.

Mike

I have experienced a fractured nut, on a through-bolt. Found the nut down in the cowl. The odds of them all fracturing are probably similiar to me paying off the national debt.
Keep us updated, the failure analysis is going to be interesting.

Gary

It looks like the studs are too short. On the video, you can see that the nuts on the next cylinders are 2 or 3 thread short..
Possibly that the studs installed were short and a couple of nuts on the bottom fell off, and the upper ones fractured right after.
Very strange.
But it looks like it could have been from the overall.