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

greg_mp wrote:

This where it differs from lycosaurus that can still give a bit of power with a blown cylinder…

To add to this, I was amazed to how good a 4-cylinder Lyco runs on three cylinders and develops thrust. Didn’t have that in flight, but on ground after startup (one cylinder refused to ignite). Vibration was noticeable, but not so bad that it would’ve teared down anything. Of course it’s not an experience you want to have in flight, but anything bringing us home safe and sound is good.

Germany

I would say that these austro engines (as well as thielert/conti) misses redundancy on critical parts, the HP pump and the common rail. Also they have 2 ECU but only one Fadec with just 1 set of sensors associated.
This where it differs from lycosaurus that can still give a bit of power with a blown cylinder…

Last Edited by greg_mp at 14 Sep 13:51
LFMD, France

Mooney_Driver wrote:

And there was me thinking they are more reliable than our lycosauri. Shame on me.

Maybe yes or no, I guess still little historical data yet to answer conclusively.
I am more worried about whether the failure mode is understood:
With lycosauruses, 95% of the failure modes are well known and hence straightforward to deal with. Even some of them in flight if you have fully manual/mechanical controls.
With an ECU, the failure modes are more insiduous and varied.

I was involved in the early years of airline flying of a newly developed ECU (or EEC) for a German-made transport aircraft turbofan engine. Failure modes in the electronics were multiple with the pareto chart growing and growing as experienced was gained, without a definite culprit component. The single biggest improvement to the failure rate was the introduction of a thermostatically controlled cooling system to minimize temperature variations. Of course with the redundancy and simplicity built into the SW and hardware, most of the failure modes did not result in in an IFSD (in flight shut down, in fact I don’t recall any in the worldwide fleet) but rather a fault being displayed for one of the channels. An ECU should be designed so that all possible failures do not result in an IFSD.

Last Edited by Antonio at 14 Sep 12:40
Antonio
LESB, Spain

They are all probably broadly comparable on MTBF, but with different failure mechanisms. For example one diesel based here had an injector fly out and throw fuel all over the engine (and it stopped, too) and that would not happen on a Lyco, but other stuff happens instead

but they haven’t released the cause for almost a year.

That’s not good, but when I previously posted that owners of “aviation stuff” still under mfg warranty are far less likely to spill the beans, I got jumped on The relationship with the dealer always comes first.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Right, well so I suppose it is time to ask some serious questions about the reliability of the Austroengine.

And there was me thinking they are more reliable than our lycosauri. Shame on me.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

The recent two years saw a large number of engine accidents, I am sure pilots & engines have not flown much and it’s a bad mix to restart the activity, for few weeks now in France there is one “engine accident/incident” almost every one or two days

Puzzling that some recent EFATOs were fatal even with good weather, long runways and flat terrain which suggest pilot currency issues as well?

Last Edited by Ibra at 14 Sep 12:12
Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom

Mooney_Driver wrote:

There was another case this summer near ZRH where a DA40 had to perform a forced landing in a field due to the same error by the looks of it. Also Austroengine, also ECU faults.

I know of at least one instance with a DA42 as well that lost an engine with a similar message of one French flight school (ended in Emergency landing in the North of France but on airfield).

LFHN - Bellegarde - Vouvray France

A couple of recent DA40 EFATO one in EGTK where a low time solo student was able to make a perfect return to the reciprocal runway from crosswind, another at EGTC where a solo student hopefully was not hurt. Aircraft appears to have mushed in.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

There was another case this summer near ZRH where a DA40 had to perform a forced landing in a field due to the same error by the looks of it. Also Austroengine, also ECU faults.

Systematical error? If so, I would expect an AD as a consequence. Pity they will not be able to examine the Calvi airplane, but they do have (at least) two others.

https://www.sust.admin.ch/inhalte/AV-berichte/HB-SGV.pdf

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Jujupilote wrote:

A shame we will never know what happened to this engine.

Diamond is in possession of engine that had similar problem (DA40 NG lost engine in IMC audio here) but they haven’t released the cause for almost a year.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia
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