Sorry to post bad news guys but need to share this with you form a safety perspective.
Anyway what happened ... engine failure, prop stopped went into a corn field and flipped over.
I have 2 fuel pumps; decided to turn 1 off, when I did the engine quit - pump back on okay - repeated same result.
5 miles from home base I headed back, radioed inbound, 1 minute later I thought I smelled fuel and another 1 minute later the engine quit. Trimmed the airplane, mayday and glided straight ahead. Lots of corn and a few soya bean fields around but didn't want
to land in them, saw a gravel road and turned to line up on it, pulled on full flaps for minimum landing speed, when I turned final there was a huge elm tree on the right edge at my expected touch down point, so at 100' I turned left into the field which was
corn ... everything was going great until I hit the corn. Thankfully the seats belts and shoulder harnesses did their job; upside down I released the belts and got out of there fast.
Walked out, phoned police and after they arrived authorities wanted the ELT shut off so we walked back to the airplane; when I got there I saw oil all over the bottom of fuselage. Checked engine and found the oil-out line (push-lock connector) hanging loose.
I expect what happened is when the engine quit and restarted those 2 times that sent a burst of oil pressure and blew the hose off ... I pushed it back on and it would not pull back off again. I had heard some guys were putting heat shrink or other back-up
systems on these connectors; I wish now I had used a simple stainless worm clamp. Engine and redrive will be toast, airplane is substantially damaged ... I'll salvage what I can.
Jeff
This message, and the documents attached hereto, is intended only for the addressee and may contain privileged or confidential information. Any unauthorized disclosure is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please notify us immediately
so that we may correct our internal records. Please then delete the original message. Thank you.