DA40NG Ditched into the sea near Calvi (Austro AE300 engine failures)

Sorry, just at sunset. And they were rescued at night.

@snoopy I don’t know. Some reports state ECU problems, others mention the fuel injection problems, while atleast one of them had a total loss of oil pressure.

No idea wether or not they were close to TBO but most of these failures happened in the last 5 years whereas the NG is being built since 2010.

Interesting, unfortunately I don’t have the time currently to research it further.

I don’t follow these cases very closely but I know that some SB was issued regarding fuel pumps, I heard about some problems with engine blocks produced by Austro (unlike the original Mercedes ones)… I’m reading different stuff on DAN forum.

Thanks Emir!

I had an engine failure last August with a DA42 and a non-eventful landing on the other still working engine. It happened in full IMC about 10 minutes into the flight after takeoff. The fuel pump was the culprit.

You can see the dead engine reflected in my sunglasses.

Although that’s a Thielert/Technify/Conti Diesel. Not sure if the Austro uses the same fuel pump.

Just a few data points, so nothing to draw any real conclusions from, but here goes anyway:

I had no engine failures in 1200 hrs DA42, Thielert second generation.
Friend the same in his, 600 hrs
Friend the same in his 600 hrs (Austro)

So that’s a total of 4800 hrs. Although all three had some of the well-known ECU failures (sensors tripping).

Maybe others can chime in on their experience with these engines

I had one engine failure with Thielert 2.0 – strictly speaking it wasn’t engine failure but broke hose clamp which resulted in loss of cooling liquid which led to intentional and controlled engine shut down. And I had one sensor failure which resulted in ECU failure message but engine continued to work without losing power. And that was all in operating two of these engines in DA42 in 500 flight hours. On new CD-155 engines I haven’t had a glitch (knock on wood) in 350 flight hours.

However, in the OP case it’s AE300 and something is going on with these engines but it’s not clear yet what issues have to be addressed. Diamond and Austro have been investigating previous case of sudden in-flight engine stop for months without releasing any info. And recently they stopped aircraft delivery from their Canadian factory for resolving some issues (nobody knows which ones).

Interesting. I fly a DA40NG almost daily currently, will tread cautiously.

According to the info I could gather :

• the DA40 had an engine failure at around 6000 feet, at 1800L. It carried one FI, 2 students and a lifeboat.
• it turned back towards Calvi and ditched after a 9-minute descent.
• another GA plane in the area spotted the ditch. It was juste before sunset.
• A Mirage 2000 is sent to follow the lifeboat and reassure its crew. (probably via NVG, maybe the life boat had a light but then why send a Mirage ?)
• At about 2000L, an EC145 from Ajaccio arrives on scene, closely followed from an Air Force Puma from Solenzara (75 nm away)
• The Puma drops its divers then hoists the 3 survivors including one in a stretcher
• the Diamond crew is left at Ajaccio hospital at 2115L

So take a lifeboat and a deck of cards
The air force 40+ years old Puma is on call 24/7, but its mission is to take off in 1 hour by day, 2 hours by night. They usually do much quicker than that (here they only took 15 minutes), but a lot of time is lost in procedures between the first mayday call and the Puma crew being dispatched.

If you want more details on the SAR procedures, check this BEA report
It was a similar ditching closer to the shore in 2009 (the famous C210).