Tale of Woe! (a mystery prop strike) G-NONI

It might be useful to put together a timeline of exactly how the aircraft came into your possession.

Did it come direct from the seller or via the broker? If via the broker then might they have a documented inspection? How did you satisfy yourself that what you were buying was airworthy? Did you go see it in person?

You say you bought it last year. Where has it been prior to delivery? Did you arrange the insurance at the time you bought it that would have covered it from the time you bought it? If not then whose insurance did cover it? I’m not sure I buy the 20 day thing. You can generally claim on insurance going back years.

Who arranged the ferry flight? Did the ferry pilot complete any sort of documented inspection or handover?

What I am getting at here is that there may be a number of points in time where you can show that the damage did not exist. Someone has already mentioned getting a statement from the ferry pilot.

We all suspect here that the damage occurred after delivery and the more evidence that points to this the better.

If a towbar did indeed do that amount of damage to the prop then the towbar itself would have obvious damage. The pictures show, and I think you confirmed as such, the red paint in the prop dent and also the red towbars used in that hanger as seen on the aircraft behind yours. If you can find the towbar it will be easy to prove what happened – fit the tow bar and the two dents will match up. You wouldn’t need to prove who did it, or why, to get the insurance claim, only that it occurred after delivery.

It might be too late now. At the time someone may well have left the towbar lying around and skulked off. However if it has been found in the meantime then someone might have got rid of it as they’d realise the significance. Have a look round the back of the hanger, behind the bins etc.

This might be a long shot but have you run the engine since? If there was significant vibration due to the damage then this would add a lot of weight to the argument that the damage occurred after the delivery flight.

Also, if you can prove that a towbar did this then it would, I think, say something about any damage to the engine. The maximum rotation that could have occurred would be a little less than 180 degrees. Little chance then that any cylinder would have fired. All the force would be confined in the crank. The starter has a fraction of the power of the engine and therefore I find it difficult to see how any damage could be done. Would a reputable engine shop be able to advise against the need for a full tear down in this instance?

Have you looked all around the area of the hanger and outside for anything showing signs of matching damage? Iron railings, GPUs, hanger door etc. I might be clutching at straws here but I desperately hope that you are able to resolve all this without excessive cost.

Have you tested the previous theory about the starter working without the keys in?

Is it worth having some sort of amnesty with the ground handlers? If you explain the problem with the insurance then if one of them would just admit to doing it then at least you’d have a valid claim.

A low time/student would ask someone and highlight the damage

If I may offer a counter-point, you might be surprised. I know of a PA28, here at Shoreham, which was started by a renter with the towbar attached, taking a 2cm x 2cm chunk out of the prop (I saw the damage). He chucked the towbar into tall grass, went for a flight, came back, said nothing, and (obviously) was never seen again. We might all think this is ridiculous but if you hit a rock with a lawn mower you just carry on, so why not the same with an aircraft? This stuff isn’t taught in the PPL.

Nimbusgb wrote:

A bloody good idea. I’ll think about how to approach this.

Why not offer him money at the same time You have to be careful with stuff like that. I would try to find the towbar or whatever object the propeller hit. You only need to find a towbar or hangar object that matches the damage, and the case is solved. It doesn’t have to be THE towbar, any towbar that matches will do, at least from your point of view. The damage could have happened before it was ferried though.

I don’t know. Reputable shops, professional pilots …. I have still to see a “reputable” shop dealing with light GA that isn’t half crooked in some way or another. I had a Cub coming directly from 100h with all spark plug wires half toned off, only fixed with the core wire. If you wan’t an aircraft in good condition, you have to do it yourself, or work closely with a mechanic on a one to one basis. The most likely event is it was damaged at the shop, or the damage existed before, and no one said anything, didn’t care, and the pilot was too busy to detect it. The insurance company may have a very different experience of the shop than what goes around. That is the easiest explanation.

Peter wrote:

This stuff isn’t taught in the PPL.

Puleeeze?? It sure as hell was taught (and emphasized during pre flight) where I got my PPL !!

Nimbusgb wrote:

My point here is that barring a strike on landing/taxi at Hawarden the aircraft was fine at delivery and the delivery pilot had nothing to gain from hiding an incident. The person was adequately covered by their own insurance, the brokers insurance and probably my insurance. NO motive!

I don’t know why you keep saying that it’s covered by your insurance. The ferry pilot was not covered by your own insurance according to your own quotation from your policy. Repeating obviously incorrect information will damage your credibility rather than enhance it. You’re better off sticking to the known facts.

Your insurance company have denied the claim on the basis that they believe it happened prior to you taking charge of the aircraft.

The real issue is that you don’t know if that’s true or not. It’s quite possible the ferry pilot messed up and did the damage themselves prior to departure and hoped to get away with it. The broker wouldn’t have known, only the ferry pilot. Or maybe the ferry pilot was in a rush, and didn’t do a proper walk around. Or perhaps the ferry pilot did it on the ground after landing. All seem unlikely to me, but this is what the insurance company chose to believe. Obviously they have a financial interest in seeing it that way.

But other than the person who caused the damage, nobody knows when it happened. As this isn’t a criminal case, it should fall on the balance of probabilities. It would seem to me that that is in your favour, as it’s more likely to have occurred on the ground post flight.

I suspect once your solicitor gets involved, the brokers insurers and your insurers will agree some formula between them (as one of them is responsible) and probably apply a discount for your own negligence in not being present at the point of delivery to inspect the goods. Then your solicitor will take a chunk of the proceeds, and you’ll be left over with a settlement, but one that won’t leave you particularly happy unfortunately. It’ll end up as one of those life lessons that we learn from.

Nimbusgb wrote:

It had a fresh annual and sign off by a very reputable maintenance organisation just a few days before it became ‘mine’.

Nimbusgb wrote:

Cover started well before delivery ( weather was crap for MONTHS ) after I bought the aircraft.

I would expect a court to accept the annual and sign-off as proof, on the balance of probabilities, that the prop was not damaged at that time. You don’t say how many days exactly after this the aircraft became yours but lets say it really was just one or two, and if the logbooks show that no movements took place, then again a court would probably accept, on balance, that the prop was ok when it came into your possession. Presumably also when your insurance cover started.

Therefore you had cover the whole time apart from during the ferry flight. A broker is not a dealer and probably does not hold the same type of cover for ’customer’s’ aircraft. Are you able to confirm if your insurance would have covered the aircraft at the place it was kept prior to delivery? If so, then with the annual sign off and ferry pilot statement a court might well find in your favour. If you could however find the offending tow bar or whatever else then this really would sort things in your favour. If you haven’t spent some time checking behind the skips etc then I would do this straight away.

Thinking about it further a ‘truth amnesty’ might well find what happened but I guess there is a risk of your insurance then holding the hanger operator responsible if it was one of their employees. Difficult to say.

As a general rule things should not be covered by multiple insurance policies. One reason why yours won’t cover flights when you are not flying or under training. So the ferry pilot will either have their own or be covered by the broker’s. As an owner you will have responsibility to ensure that it is only used when covered by third party damage insurance as a minimum.

172driver wrote:

Peter wrote:
This stuff isn’t taught in the PPL.
Puleeeze?? It sure as hell was taught (and emphasized during pre flight) where I got my PPL !!

I had it very well covered right at the start of my PPL as well. Many a time I would ask an instructor to check a small ding on the prop but felt like I’d wasted their time when they’d come over and look and then go “Nah, nothing wrong with that”. Peter’s PA28 renter is an interesting point but I think perhaps aimed at the wrong culprits. I think any low hours person would question even minor damage. They’d pretend the weather didn’t suit their plans or whatever after the damage rather than fly it. As you get more experience you are better able to judge if something is a problem and also be more confident in your abilities to deal with the consequences if your judgement turns out to be wrong. I’d wager that the PA28 that Peter speaks of was rented by someone who had quite a few hours under their belt.

What I am getting at is that it could be said that your ferry pilot, with lots of experience of both flying AND the finer points of prop maintenance, might confidently fly with the damage. Did they do the damage? Who knows. If so maybe they didn’t want a claim on their own policy hence keeping quiet. It is unfortunate in aviation that just a tiny tiny mistake can cost tens of thousands of pounds in damage in an instant and the pressure to hide mistakes is immense. I think this is what LeSving is getting at.