Feature

Forced Landing

by Mark Chamberlain

Quick rundown on this one: took off from DVT this morning to get gas, landed at Glendale, filled up and took off back towards DVT. About 2 or 3 minutes after takeoff (just leaving Glendale airspace) the engine just quit without warning. Tried to restart, couldn't, turned back to Glendale and informed them of engine out situation. As I set up for best glide it became obvious that I wasn't going to make the runway so I saw the construction site up the side of the New River canal (just west of the 101 / 99th Ave and Northern), and that's where I ended up. I did NOT clip the wing on the crane as the news has been saying, in fact I flew it back to DVT just a while ago, not a scratch (although I still can't believe I didn't break anything, it's a pretty tight area, guess I'm very lucky).

What went wrong? I have a rubber mat stuck to the bottom of the air box that was there to help seal the bottom of the air filter to the air box. It had come unglued and managed to get sucked in to the bottom of the throttle body. I'm still not sure how in managed to work itself out from being clamped between the air filter and the bottom of the box and also the high-strength adhesive I used to stick in on there (it's been there for over 200 hours). Anyway, it's riveted to the air box now as well as bonded (probably should have been riveted in the first place, but we live and learn).

This "off-airport" stuff is getting old, I don't mind if I don't have to do it again.

Mark - RV-7 - 210 hrs + 2 off-airport landings, and that's enough.

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