planeandpilotmag.com 27my wife to recline her seat and enjoy a peaceful nap.
We had been droning along for a little more than
an hour when I thought I smelled smoke. I surveyed
the ground to see if we had flown through smoke
rising from the ground. I didn’t see anything on the
ground that could account for the smoke smell, so I
asked my wife, “Do you smell smoke?”
Just as I did, I noticed the needle moving on the oil
pressure gauge. We were losing oil pressure. Rapidly.
My first thought was the damage that could occur
running the engine without oil. The engine had been
rebuilt less than a year before, so I wanted to avoid
harming it if possible.
I reduced the throttle to idle, pulled the prop to high
pitch and pulled the mixture control out to eliminate
the fuel flow. Even though the propeller continued to
spin, I thought there was less chance of causing dam-
age than if I allowed it to continue to run.
It took only a few seconds to realize we were less
than 5 miles from the Thomasville, Georgia, airport
(TVI), so making the field without power would be
no problem.
I turned toward the airport and trimmed the
aircraft for the best power-off glide speed. Next, I
looked up Thomasville’s radio frequency, which was
its Unicom frequency since it’s an uncontrolled air-
port. I broadcast our position relative to the airport,
our engine-out condition and our intention to land.
(After landing, I learned no one had heard my
broadcast because I had misread the frequency off
the chart.)
Now I had nothing to do except fly the airplane.
The aircraft was trimmed for the best power-off
glide speed, and we were descending slowly through
6,700 feet.
I knew we had the airport made, so I lowered the
landing gear, which stopped the gear-up alarm, which
I later learned was frightening for my wife. With the
additional drag from our landing gear, our descent
increased but not enough, so I began an aggressive slip
to further accelerate our descent without increasing
our speed. I wanted to land as soon as possible, so I
could stop the engine from wind milling to reduce
the chance of damage.
We landed on Runway 4, and our momentum
allowed us to clear the runway and come to a stop a
couple hundred feet down a taxiway.
As soon as we stopped, my wife started crying. I
was surprised. I had never seen her cry. Then I real-
ized I had failed to reassure her during the descent.
I had known everything was fine, but I had not told
her. She only knew we had an emergency. I couldn’t
believe I hadn’t thought to let her know.
The FBO’s linemen towed us to the maintenance
shop, which was still open...thankfully.
After washing the oil off the engine and side of the
airplane, they filled it with oil, and I started the engine
to trace the source of the leak.
It took one second to determine an external oil line
had ruptured. Typically, there are no external oil lines,
but the previous owner had installed an external oil
filter similar to those on automobiles. It was mounted
on the firewall behind the engine, so it required a line
to flow oil from the engine to the filter and another
to return the oil to the engine. The lines had been
replaced during engine overhaul a few months before
and shouldn’t have ruptured. They were designed for
oil under high pressure, and the Bonanza’s engine pres-
sure was only about 80 psi. We could only determine
it was a rare defect in the line. The shop had enough
high-pressure line to replace the ruptured section but
not enough to replace the return line.
That would prove to be fateful.
GAB The repair and cleanup were completed in two orRIEL^ CAMPA
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