Piper Comanche 260 fuel tank switch problem/operation

[Higgler]

Sunday, a Piper Commanche 260 flew over me on the golf course and sputtered in my backswing, I pushed the ball right. He had a rough landing on the 101 freeway while I landed in the rough too (thankfully the pilot and I were both uninjured, as I parred the hole). The pilot overhead was at about 1500 feet altitude when sputtering and 7 miles from the airport, hence the freeway landing about two miles short of the runway.

Link,

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/23/california.plane.landing/

A doctor friend who stopped to help the pilot on 101 got a response from the pilot, and I quote "my stick was stuck".

I read about his fuel switch in the news maybe didn't work when he switched tanks.

Any thoughts how a fuel switch in this type aircraft operates and how it could stick? I think back to John Denver and his fuel switch woes (different aircraft though).

Thanks

 

[bf109g]

Wouldn't be the first time somebody switched to an empty tank. People sometimes jump in and go w/o checking the go juice.

Interested in seeing what the investigation turns up.

 

[KirbyWan]

This doesn't answer your question, but it's a good story.

Coming back with my Father and friend from the EAA airshow in Oshkosh WI in 1983 or 1984 when I was around 13 years old we had an ... incedent. We had selected a particular airport to refuel at that was about 1/4 of the way into Pennsylvania (we lived in NJ at the time). When we made radio contact with the airport the pumps had already been closed for the night. There were only two 24 hour pumps in PA. One was at Whitman field near the middle of PA and the other was at Erie on the western edge which we had already past. We thought we had enough to get to either field and so decided to go forward instead of back tracking. This was a mistake. Whitman field is in the foothills of the Applachians and though we had enough fule to get to the area, we never found the locator beacon. By comparison the city of Erie is on an open plane and you could see the beacon from 50 miles away. We choose an empty road to land on which would have been fine except we never saw the telephone poles that ran along the road. We clipped our right wing and landed sideways and slid almost to the next telephone pole. We all walked away uninjured, but that Piper Cherokee 180 was no longer.

Sorry for relating an otherwise irrelevant story. Just thought I'd share.

-Kirby

Kirby Wilkerson

Remember, first define the problem, then solve it.

 

[genomon]

Story of the CA incident here:

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentBlockID=2499325e-00c2-49ed-a57b-98b9145c092e&

No experience with twins here, but if memory serves there is a
selector lever between the front seats for L/Both/R. Also typically this is a pump-driven system with boost. Could be fuel starvation, pump failure (either mechanical or electrical), or possibly the selector lever was broken or stuck. I've only done student flying in Cessna 152s & 172s so far, so not positive.

 

[Hansmeister]

The fuel tank selector handle is inside what we call the "dog dish". The handle is tightened to the fuel selector shaft via an Allen head socket set screw. If the handle becomes loose, the pilot can't switch tanks.

He may have had fuel on-board, but just couldn't select it.

 

[Dan320]

Some fuel valves are known to seize from lack of lubrication. Piper singles suffer from this, don't know about the Comanche.

Dan

 

[bf109g]

Sounds like a crappy design to me. Rely on a set screw to maintain lock of the lever to the shaft?

The later fuel valves have a half round/half square so that there is a positive lock with the handle/lever. They also have a nylon/delrin or something bearing to take care of the lube problem.

 

[thruthefence]

This is on an aircraft that drives the landing gear with a pair of large push-pull cables, failure of any one of which can not only cause a "gear up" landing, but damage the structure of the aircraft before it even hits the ground.