BANGOR, Maine — When a Bangor flight instructor took a newly licensed pilot on his checkout flight the night of June 12, something went awry.
“We got to around 1,500 feet and we heard a loud bang and the plane started shaking,” said Rick Eason, faculty adviser for the University Flying Club in Orono, who took off with the pilot at around 7:25 p.m.
After the two made a safe emergency landing at Bangor International Airport, Eason said he was soon contacted by the airport’s control tower, “and they asked if I lost something from my plane.”
As Eason soon figured out by comparing data from his GPS device with the time of the incident, as well as a reported call to Bangor Fire Department’s Station 6, a small piece of the Cessna 172 did break off. It crashed through the roof and into the front room of a Bangor man’s house on Peruvian Way in the Judson Heights neighborhood, according to the Bangor Fire Department.
“He said it was still hot,” Interim Fire Chief Rick Cheverie said.
The unidentified falling object turned out to be a piston wrist pin, a part 1 inch in diameter and 4 inches long that connects the arm and head of a piston inside a plane engine’s cylinder, Cheverie said. It fell through the attic and sheetrock ceiling of the house, leaving a noticeable mark on the hardwood floor of the foyer.
The fire chief said no one in the house was hurt, but he estimated the house had more than $5,000 in damage.
“It could have been a much different outcome,” Cheverie said, referring to a child who was cycling near the house at the time of impact.
Eason said the homeowner, who asked not to be identified, was 15-20 feet away when the small destructive object came crashing through his roof.
“We’ve never had anything like this. We haven’t had any in-flight problems like this,” the flight instructor said.
Eason said he reported the incident to the Flight Standards District Office in Portland, a regional division of the Federal Aviation Administration, in accordance with FAA regulations.
“We don’t know why it happened,” said Soren Hansen, the flying club’s mechanical officer.
Apparently, Hansen said, one of the engine’s six cylinders split in half and the piston pin shot out and crashed through the Bangor man’s roof. The Cessna 172 is one of the flying club’s two available aircraft.
The maintenance officer said this plane in particular was “probably” getting close to its overhaul period, a recurring time when mechanics take the engine apart for maintenance. Hansen said he estimated it was around hour 1,500 out of the 1,800-hour limit for time between maintenance checks.
FAA spokesman Jim Peters said a federal inspector has confirmed the details of the incident, and the FAA is now waiting for Eason to send a report after the aircraft is repaired. Peters said the FAA is also awaiting contact with the Bangor homeowner to record the details of the accident.
It’s important for FAA to record all details of an incident like this, because if similar occurrences have been reported, it could point to a larger manufacturing problem with the plane’s model, Peters said. However, this does not appear to be the case in this instance, he added.
It’s been too long since my college physics classes to figure out the terminal velocity of the piston connecting rod and the energy per square foot that it was generating when it hit the roof, but I would have thought it unlikely that something as small as this part could have so easily penetrated a roof. Are we making homes out of paper mache?
solid chunk of metal like that seems to be about the same size as some artillery rounds.
High weight, high velocity, low surface area means high penetration. Think of a sabot round out of a tank. Large amounts of energy concentrated on a small area means penetration
More than likely the part didn’t just fall, but was actually “shot” out of the engine with tremendous force. If that force were directed downward it could have easily penetrated the roof.
bullets don’t weigh much, but
not very high weight, couple ounces, low velocity compared to a bullet , maybe 120 mph compared to 1/2 mile per second. I’d have thought it would bounce!!
That doens’t look like a connecting rod. Closest thing it resembles is the pin that attaches the piston to the rod. Also called a “wrist pin” but not connecting rod.
Was going to say the same thing. That’s a wrist pin.
If that hit me in the head and killed me, i would have just assumed it was my wife hitting me with a frying pan.
Yep….and while it was still hot!
you are correct
Gotta be a piston and cylinder out there some where.
I think that if you read the article again, it states that it was a Wrist pin. Not a connecting rod.
If you look at the bottom of the article, you’ll see a correction stating that an earlier version of the story misidentified the part as a connecting rod. That’s what Colby was responding to at the time he/she posted this post.
Yes, and when I posted my comment, they had not yet posted a correction. The correciton came later.. much later.
most likely 2×4 trusses half inch plywood or partical boards one layer of felt then shingals so i guess it wouldnt take a whole lot of force to penetrate and at 1500 feet was probly goin a hundred miles a hour when it hit just glad it didnt hit the home owener
thats not a connecting rod..its a wrist pin. It holds the piston and rod together. Ive seen plenty of blown engines working at our local dragstrip. Lots of engine carnage….that looks familiar.
$5,000! You must be kidding.
I hate to tell you, WPOND, but considering the roofing repair (substrate, vapor barrier, shingles and likely insulation inside), the drywall/ceiling repair, and the flooring repair, if you want it to look decent and not leak, there goes $5K easy. Let’s hope the insurance company steps up on this one.
I’m sure you’d do it for $5K, but if you think insulation was ruined, I wouldn’t hire you…
It depends what it has for insulation, no?
When he puts in the insurance claim, the carpet on the floor it landed will cost triple that…plus the Picasso that got knocked off the wall, and the high end sofa the thing bounced off on its way to the carpet, after striking his flat screen TV.
Are you suggesting that this homeowner will file a false claim to try to get more money from the insurance company? Pretty presumptuous on your part…….
If the wrist pin fell on the house, where is the piston?
Possibly still in the block.
Horizontal opposed airplane engines don’t have “blocks” like car engines do. There is a split crankcase that is bolted together and contains the crankshaft and lower portion of the connecting rod. The cylinders are aircooled with fins and are fastened to the crankcase via studs and nuts. For the wrist pin to fall out, the piston must have been disconnected from the connecting rod and unless it was found inside the engine cowling, is also on the ground somewhere.
Unless of course its using an FHI (Fuji Heavy Industries) engine, which is the exact same engine used in Subaru cars (which are horizontally-opposed)
JUST LIKE MY SUBARU!
I hate it when that happens.
I understand the homeowner’s request to remain unnamed. What I don’t understand is his giving approval for a picture of his house and address while wanting to remain anonymous.
The BDN doesn’t need approval to take a photo of anything that can be seen from the street. The interior photos are credited to the Bangor Fire Department. But I have to agree that if the home owner requested to remain unnamed that the BDN taking photos of the house and name the address is in bad taste.
It’s in the public’s interest to know. I will fault the paper for, once again, failing to identify a person in a story and not bothering to give an explanation for the person’s desire to remain anonymous. It’s poor journalism.
Maybe in this case it would contribute nothing to the story, and is no one’s business (except to the officials involved) what his name is?
I am the public. I don’t care what the guy’s name is. You’re just being nosey.
You are one person — hardly the “public.”
Anyone could guess who he is too by the hole in the roof……if you’re tall enough.
And there are a bunch of nosey people out there….. They will actually try to find out who he is…
i agree with you on that one stevey it doesnt take away from the story just a bunch of nosy s for sure
Cessna 172’s do not have 6 cylinder engines. Only 4 cylinders on a Lycoming O-320 172 engine.
Yes they do as Ben Hutchins just stated. I had a 172B 1961 that had a 0-300D engine by continental. Also 100LL avgas is not supposed to contain ethanol which is banned for use with Supplemental Type Certificates for aircraft approved for use of auto gas.
…Unless it has the Continental O-300…
That was pretty much every Skyhawk made from 1956 to about 1968, IIRC, so the odds are decent. :)
it took 8 days to put this in the BDN
Hot breaking news !
Thank goodness it wasn’t the entire plane!
airport are exempt from ethonal but suppliers still seem to have that crap end up everywhere and in every thank…. killed this engine… when are we going to band ethonal all together..
no “ethonal” in 100LL
When you learn how to combine letters into real words, I’ll consider joining your cause. As it stands though, the fact you can’t even spell E T H A N O L tells me you have NO clue as to what it does or doesn’t do to engines…so you are wholly unqualified to make any sort of statement linking ethanol (which these planes don’t use) to this type of engine failure.
Good causes hate people like you, because your ignorance and blind regurgitation of non-facts hurts the otherwise good cause.
Cause & Effect,,,chill…lol
Well no, since ethanol didn’t cause this. Also, kudos for being able to pick emotion/stress-level out of ASCII text!
Oh wait…I’m already “chill”…
ya this is a wrist pin.. and from no 1 cylinder… now this will frost your barries to know how I know that.. lol
Hmm so you know that, but you can’t spell ethanol (or berries) and you don’t know what ethanol does to engines?
Tell your mechanic friend (looking over your shoulder) that we all said “HI!”
I’ll put a couple of shingles on the roof and fix the ceiling for 5 grand… I’m non union and could give the home owner back a grand as a jobs finders fee. Call Me (-;
And would you give a 35-year warranty that your patch will not leak?
First of all I never said patch. I would abide by the factory applications and the warranty would stand, been there done it. what would you do, keep the job finders fee and replace 10 peices.. In my old life I was a contractor, never had to advertize because my work stood for it’s self and people wanted me… $5.000 for that work is legal theft
Davidvsgoliath, you are the one that wrote:
“…I’ll put a couple of shingles on the roof and fix the ceiling …”
I agree more with BigUgly Cat above who wrote about the right way to do the work:
“…but considering the roofing repair (substrate, vapor barrier, shingles and likely insulation inside), the drywall/ceiling repair, and the flooring repair, if you want it to look decent and not leak…”
How about 4 grand back? That would be more like it.
I was on extended final when these guys lost their motor. They did a damn fine job of getting it back safe. Probably had to have their seat cushions surgically removed from their posteriors.
Or cleaned at the least!
Donnie Darko!!
he asked not to be identified but you gave the mans home address……. lol.