There are those who require twins for their mission. Mountains, ice, night, IMC, etc.

This came up in the bone doctor thread.

So there is some self selection going on for the twin doing "tougher" missions.


Not for turbines being discussed here.


The King Air can because you can get a decent one under $1M, not true for PC-12 or TBM. Cost of capital has to be figured.

Also, King Air is among the worst economics for twin turboprops due to being fuel hungry, maintenance intensive, and slow.

I am sure my MU2 is operate less than a PC-12 even ignoring purchase price differences.

Mike C.

Very rare to have a fatal due to a ditching. PC-12 is built like a tank and is one reason folks walk away from off field landings (due to engine failure).



Absolutely not true for the PC-12. If anything, it’s missions are more challenging and present more risk, yet fatals are still lower than other turboprops.




Whose decisions are influenced by old wives” tales or corporate pilots who need the beloved multi engine time.



I won’t dispute that but it goes both ways including botched single engine failures.




That’s good. I’ll take the turboprop with no fatals in 9m hours and a well trained pilot.



The market votes otherwise. Over the last 30 years, manufacturers are dropping the twins and building singles.

I have been in Alaska in IMC, Pac NW, Rockies, Night and or IMC and one thing is common. You hear SETPs on freq as often as you hear METPs. I don’t think the operators of SETPs would run their missions any different if they had an METP. From an engine failure standpoint, the data is clear. The Meridian/M500/M600/TBM/PC12 with maybe 12 million fleet hours clearly have a better engine failure fatal safety record than METPs. We hardly go a year without someone inverting a King Air somewhere after engine failure. The rest, ice, mountains,water, night, IMC does not seem to statistically make a difference at all. So the best reason to own a twin, is wanting to own a twin. Safety doesn’t play into it. Not in propeller driven aircraft. Jets are different animals, with frickin birds, and no bird blender in front of the intake, you need 2 or three of them. Sully wished for 4.

It isn't the ditching, it is the drowning afterward that gets you.

"his passengers had immersion suits to help retain body heat, but their low-cost life raft had only a single flotation tube on the sides, so waves kept coming over the top. They had to keep bailing it out for about 15 hours with a collapsible bucket. “When night fell, [we experienced] hypothermia within a few hours,” he recalled.

A passing vessel discovered Smith and his companions in time to save them. “We were very, very lucky,” he said. “If I’d been trained, I would have had a better life raft and more equipment, such as a satellite phone and GPS.”

It was by random chance a Russian freighter saw them, I don't thin they were actually looking for them intentionally.

Another PC-12 ditch on the way to Hawaii, due to ferry tank issues, so nto really on point, but the crew had to survive 22 hours before getting rescued.


We have plenty of threads where the operators won't fly a single, so this is self selected.

Read the bone doctor thread about replacing King Airs. Singles need not apply.


Doesn't matter why they make the decision, but they do make it to use twins on what they see are more challenging missions.

Mike C.

I think this
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=198563

That was pilot error, not ferry tank. The tank was not tested before the ferry flight. Obviously it was not working. Like taking off with a known leak. That was simply not an engine failure.

I would say that the Russian ditching was the same albeit they remembered the gummy bear suits. That's incredibly fortunate. A properly planned route would have a certified life raft (very big) and a waterproof sat phone for communications.

Both in this case were preparation (pilot) error. We also have zero idea about the maintenance and state of the Russian airplane.

It has been shown without a single piece of doubt that twins with propellers (with properly trained and current pilots) have crashed because of an engine issue.

I believe if we look at the statistical safety of the airplanes with only the engine in focus, the statistical safety of that airplane rests with an airplane that has only one engine.

It may bring well trained pilots some comfort knowing that they have another engine to rely on, but stats do not bear that out.

Flying the Kingairs I find I’m being vectored around places like Nantucket, Marthas Vinyard, Chicago, Cleveland etc wintertime, relatively low over the water in a position I could not glide to shore. Day and night. I’m glad to have 2 engines

Do those that fly single engine turboprops or pistons request, or plan any different routing or get different handling to keep in a position where at least landfall could be made in these situations?

From a mechanical standpoint the age of the airplane can be relevant As the TBM remains in production but the 90 has ended the age difference of the fleet will increase. How long will Textron continue the parts supply?

I’ve have found some pretty horrible things done to the Kingairs during maintenance and I’m surprised maintenance is not a more common accident cause. How is the TBM maintenance training and manual subscriptions handled compared to Textron? Is the TBM a metric hardware airplane?

TBM is a mixture of SAE and Metric on some things.
TBM MX and Parts manual was an done by notifying Daher through the website. They responded to my request, we have a 850, with a login and access to the manuals. No cost. We take the TBM to Columbia for MX so I just do minor things, mostly service like tire pressures, etc.
But no, haven't gone for training. Its Enough caring for P-51s, T-6s and the Cessna 182. I Have done Flightsaftey for the Cheyenne II we had in the past.

Thanks Rich, I guess another line of questions if the goal is evaluating safety,

What are the highest time TBM airframes vs Kingairs of the model desired and any problems found to get to that total time. How were the high time airframes used. Survey work, high cycle short hauls, Charter etc.

The maintenance alerts and Ads, service bulletins might be more helpful than just looking at accident, incident reports.

I always ask for direct, flying to Nantucket I hardly ever get it, so if able I go VFR.
At 4k you are in gliding distance to land ANYWHERE on that trip.

Rare to see a King Air at Nantucket (unless it's a wheels up bird), now Pilati's are damn everywhere.

Most accidents with the TBM I'm aware of seem to be Pilot Induced/Pilot Error.
Flight into icing, poor pilotage and misconfiguring things.
TBM has been around long enough to have gone through various model improvements. So an early 700 issues/history may not apples to apples with a 850 and again an 850 with G-1000 and then again with 900 series. Many improvements along the way.
The 5 Blade prop helps with takeoff/climb and with slowing down on the runway. One issue to consider is ground clearance if airport surfaces are on the rough side of things.
A local guy a few years back landed in the snow between the runway and taxiway as that looked like the runway to him coming in. Runway and Taxiways had been plowed before but covered with a thin layer again. From the air the rough area not plowed looked like the better surface and he plopped it down there. Nothing hurt on the TBM. It got looked over and he kept flying it.

I taxi on grass / dirt almost every trip with the E90. It’s good grass but there are transitions going onto paved runway surface. No prop damage or FOD in the inlets after 1500 hours here with it and 850 hours with a small main tire 1980 200.

The nose mounted propeller on the TBM is well forward of the nose gear. PC-12 even further both with smaller size of the nose tire compared to the Kingair series and the Kingair prop arc is close to the same distance from the main gear as the nose wheel

The distance the prop arc drops if the nose wheel is in a depression may be worth looking at. Of course it’s one engine / propeller vs two if there is a problem

Not really a safety data point but depending operation worth considering. Track record seems to be fine for all with rough surfaces.

Rough air maneuvering speed for each airframe is something else to consider. Around the northeast we frequently are held down by ATC and have to slow down in the bumps. What speed you can make during those conditions can be a significant part of your trip. Not sure if winglet modified airplanes are affected by this.

I always ask for direct, flying to Nantucket I hardly ever get it, so if able I go VFR.
At 4k you are in gliding distance to land ANYWHERE on that trip.

Rare to see a King Air at Nantucket (unless it's a wheels up bird), now Pilati's are damn everywhere.

TBM prop is 8.25” above the ground. The inlet is low. It is not an airplane I’d land on an unimproved surface. The tires are a bit narrow and very high pressure (134psi). I taxied it in grass once, and I’ll never do it again. However, it takes off and stops on a dime. It’s easy to get into 2500’ of pavement.

I have heard of a prop strike from taxiing into off the edge of the concrete, but I don’t know how likely it is.

And if down at 4,000 feet, I’d rather be burning 75gph instead of 150.