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MT prop AD issued

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 4:05 am
by redacted
The AD references and mirrors this service bulletin from MT. https://www.mt-propeller.com/pdf/sbs/sb30r8.pdf

I have the 83" MT on my 180hp bird. Just learned about the AD on the Lancair forum. Spreading the good word here for any MT users.

Re: MT prop AD issued

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 5:34 pm
by Joe Moilanen
In the middle of August I spent a few days airplane camping at Johnson Creek in the Idaho back-country. About a week before I got there a Husky with two twin Brothers and a dog onboard crashed on takeoff from Johnson Creek. Only the dog survived. I looked at their flight path on Flight-aware and it looks like they lost power at about 600' and tried to turn back to the airstrip and stall/spun directly nose-down into the river. A fellow pilot there at the time was looking at the crash site and found the spinner on the river bank about 200' before the impact point and it was almost undamaged...Looking at the prop hub one blade was splintered off and the other was completely missing from the hub (MT prop). My guess was that it pitched a blade on climb out. The investigators didn't seem a bit interested in taking the spinner with them for further investigation, they just left it laying there... I spent the better part of a day searching the whole area for the missing blade but never did find it. I could have even floated down the river. I contacted MT and told them about it, perhaps this has something to do with the AD. I personally won't fly behind an MT propeller.

Joe
4518C

Re: MT prop AD issued

Posted: Thu Oct 13, 2022 5:40 pm
by redacted
MT is a great prop. Production issues happen. And the FAA doesn’t move that fast to get an AD out in one month. Maybe if it was a 737 crash but at the end of the day, and it’s sad, they don’t care about the two who died.

And to be fair we don’t know if this was a lag screw issue or not. But somewhere in the final docket available in a year or two you should be able to get PN and SN and go look for yourself.

Love my MT, lot of dudes up in Alaska running them as well, no spray damage from the water. Good stuff.

Re: MT prop AD issued

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2022 4:46 pm
by voorheesh
That spinner should not have been left at an accident site. If you know of its present whereabouts, I recommend you contact NTSB at 844-373-9922 or 202-314-6290 and alert them to potentially important evidence. Let’s hope someone else took care of this since August, but given the seriousness (fatal accident) I hope the NTSB is aware and is able to give it proper attention.

Re: MT prop AD issued

Posted: Fri Oct 14, 2022 5:51 pm
by Joe Moilanen
voorheesh wrote:That spinner should not have been left at an accident site. If you know of its present whereabouts, I recommend you contact NTSB at 844-373-9922 or 202-314-6290 and alert them to potentially important evidence. Let’s hope someone else took care of this since August, but given the seriousness (fatal accident) I hope the NTSB is aware and is able to give it proper attention.
I might have to go down some "rabbit holes" to find out where the spinner wound up but I will see what I can do.

Joe
4518C

Re: MT prop AD issued

Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2022 2:21 am
by c170b53
Joe don’t forget the .410 :D

Re: MT prop AD issued

Posted: Sat Oct 15, 2022 9:19 am
by GAHorn
redacted wrote:…..And the FAA doesn’t move that fast …. at the end of the day, and it’s sad, they don’t care about the two who died.

….
That seems a bit harsh.