Originally Posted by
TonyC
I wonder what noise the engine would make as the last few ounces of gas empty out of the tanks, through the carb, through the valves into the cylinders ...
You know, like how the car engine spurts and sputters as it's gasping for the last few drops of gas in the tank and the car begins slowing and you start looking for a good place to coast over to the shoulder and stop.
Eyewitness: "Just before the car coasted to the shoulder and stopped, I heard a 'surging engine noise'."
Expert Investigator: "That's not possible. The engine could not have been making a noise because the gas tank was empty."
(The criticism of eyewitness reports is not without basis, but this doesn't serve as a valid example.)
.
It IS a valid example. The instance I remember from Safety school was a plane that ran out of gas at several thousand feet. The engine was not operating whatsoever. The eyewitnesses brain "filled in the blanks" to what his eyes were seeing, but his ears didn't hear (because it didn't happen). It is a known phenomenon.
And an equally valid example is the exact opposite when the engine is found to have been operating perfectly, with a full gas tank. Reports of a surging and sputtering engine all the way to the crash, including flames coming out of the exhaust - turns out the crash was caused by a negligent and hugely over max gross weight takeoff followed by crash into a street or houses past the end of the runway.