BURflyer

Word of the wise, if the plane doesn't feel right don't fly it. I had a serious phobia back in the day with one of the 172s at our flight school, this plane was a POS. I had to return many times to the airport because of problems. One day the engine all of a sudden quit but we had it restart, barely. From that day on I never flew that 172 even if that was the only plane available. Murphy's law is a *****.

Roll Inverted and Pull

I`ve lost three in my years of flying. The first was a P&W J57. I last saw 30% rpm and 1000degrees C (that`s as far as the needle would go). Since this was my only source of power, I left the machine at 15,000 feet. I also lost an RB 211, luckly, I had two more. Proceed to destination (SAN) on the ground, found all fan blades missing. Someone got a bunch of metal in their yard in New Mexico.Also lost another P&W on climb out from SRQ (in a 757), compressor stall, a couple of chugs and a loud explosion, with fire out the front end, landed, changed underwear and went to the hotel.

daytonaflyer

I had one about 3 1/2 years ago. I was flying a traffic watch C-172. It was about 6am and still completely dark out. I had just taken off from KLEX with two radio station reporters and myself aboard. I had just started my crosswind turn at about 650AGL when the engine began to run very rough, and then quit.
I quickly turned back toward the runway and notified the tower who cleared me for landing on any runway. Unfortunately there was an airline turboprop getting ready to take off on the same runway and when the tower controller cancelled his takeoff clearance, the pilot replied "Okay, cleared for takeoff" and began his takeoff roll.
Now I couldn't land in front of the turboprop that was rolling down the runway, so I elected to go behind the airplane. The tower controller ordered the airliner to abort his takeoff roll, and I told him over the radio to continue taxiiing down the runway as I needed room to land behind him. He continued down the runway and I landed a couple hundred feet behind them on the same runway.
The mechanic found a faulty spark plug that had exploded in the cylinder and locked up part of the engine.

mikeisbeast

i was doing pattern work at LGB two weeks back and on take off climb had a hawk with a swear a good 5ft wing span pass inches from my wing...

fatmike69

A few years back was instructing in a C-172 (at night). 400' AGL after takeoff I hear a loud bang and lose alot of power, and starts running so rough feels like it's about shake right off the engine mount (I lost a cylinder obviously) so I had to reduce the power even more to bring the vibrations to a tolerable level. Did a 180 and landed the opposite direction, not too much fun as it had to be done at 400' as there was no power to climb, ugh.

Turns out a renter before me liked to lean the mixture beyond peak EGT on the lean side for all operations, including full power takeoffs at sea level in cold temperature, sheer genius. So after frying some rings, I get it and it proceeds to suck a valve right through the cylinder head. The sight of it was amazing, it must really have pulled that valve through the head with some force, that was some seriously bent metal. Apparently the mechanic said the shape of the other cylinders were pretty bad too, so I guess I was lucky the entire engine didn't explode.

Don't trust rental airplanes.

qaluunat

I have also had a problem with a cylinder. I had just soloed the week before, so I'm still getting a feel for the aircraft. It was a 172. I had spent about an hour practicing manuevers, and decided to come back and practice landings. I did the first one ok, but on the second I just couldn't climb. I blew a cylinder. I barely had over 1,000 r.p.m. I was at 200 feet, and fortunately was able to maintain my altitude. I circled back, and made a normal landing. As a new student I was terrified, but I managed to stay calm. I believe most pilots die because they freak out. I'm just glad that I decided to come back and practice landings or I might have had to make a landing in the desert.

JetJocF14

As a college student ferrying a C-150 from San Marcos, TX to Beaumont, TX I lost the quick drain oil plug when climbing to get over the Houston TCA. The engine seized up right there......... Ironacally the airplane was getting an engine change.

Later in during Navy days I lost a few engines in a F-14 Tomcat and ended up during precautionary shutdowns. Still have to land on the boat when blue water ops. ( Meaning nowhere else to land. Land or swim) Also had a TA-4J Skyhawk engine completely blow apart. Started with really bad compressor stalls and after 30 seconds, totally on fire, gave that airplane back to the goverment with a silk ride (eject) for me and my partner.

Finally knock on wood, only lost one engine due to a bleed duct failure in a Boeing 727.

Bottom line it does happen and will happen so you need to be prepared.

wildcat1

Well, it was stupid...kind of the point of the post. I wanted everyone here to learn from it. Everyone that has flown for any amount of time has done something stupid. I posted my one stupid act so others would learn from it with out actually doing it.

multipilot

I lost an engine once in a DA20. We were slow enough that the prop stopped completely. I took the controls from my student and was able to get it restarted. Needless to say we cut that lesson short. We flew back to the airport with the electric fuel pump on the whole time. As it turns out, the engine driven fuel pump failed as my student was reducing power for a power off stall.