STATEMENT OF INSPECTOR
GEORGE T. ERDEL
ASI/AW
SO FSDO-03
N52749
CESSNA 172 S/N 74599
EMERGENCY LANDING IN FIELD NEAR
SHELBYVILLE, TENNESSEE
AUGUST 28, 1998

I was asked to investigate what was reported as an aircraft accident in a field near Shelbyville, Tenn. I was advised that the pilot had escaped injury and was enroute back to the Shelbyville Airport. I dispatched from the office and utilized my POV to travel to the scene. The amount of damage to the aircraft was not disclosed at this time. I was expecting to see an aircraft with significant damage in a field.

Upon arrival I found a Cessna 172 completely intact with nothing more than a broken nose wheel fairing. It was in a pasture of several hundred acres. The owner was present and I was advised that the mechanic/TA was on his way to the scene. The pilot reported to me that he had initially lost partial engine power, and that a very short time later he lost all engine power and he elected to land in this pasture. All went fine until his nose gear fairing impacted a small ridge that caused it to break. This was the only damage to the aircraft.

IA Mark Cobb arrived shortly after me. He had performed an annual inspection on the aircraft only a matter of a couple of weeks earlier. I checked the certificated of the pilot and obtained the following: Pilot was Robert Scovill Jr., He holds commercial, instrument, ASMEL. His medical is a second class issued on April 30, 1998. All paperwork was in order.

After establishing the paperwork was in order, I observed Mark Cobb remove the cowling of the aircraft. Nothing was out of the ordinary inside the engine compartment. We elected to see if the engine would operate so after taking fuel samples, which came out clean and free of any type of contamination the engine was started and operated for about 5 minutes at full static power. It worked flawlessly. A proper magneto check was performed at the proper speed. Again there were no problems found. Following the engine run we again decided to sample the fuel. During this time we kept discussing the prospect of the pilot having experienced carburetor icing conditions. The pilot Mr. Scovill insisted that it did not feel like carburetor icing and said he felt it was fuel contamination. The second fuel sample was taken from the low point drain, gascolator, and each wing sample collection points. We drained in excess of a gallon of avgas on each of these fuel samples. Again, all samples were clean, with no trace of contamination.

 The owner of the field was present during this entire episode. He graciously offered to use his mowing equipment to cut a grass runway for flying the aircraft out of the field. Mr. Scovill accepted his offer and after the grass was cut Mr. Scovill proceeded to taxi the aircraft to the opposite end of the field. This involved about a half of a mile taxi over some fairly uneven ground to an area of the pasture where he could make a good take off run. During this taxi the aircraft was seen to sway significantly from side to side into the wind and proceeded to perform a pre flight run up. It was at this time that the engine began to sputter, and run extremely rough. He secured the engine and we again got the bucket to collect fuel samples.

During this round of sampling the fuel we began to get copious amounts of dirty water in what had been previously clean fuel. We removed about a pint of water from all sampling points. A run up was performed and the engine did not run right. An inspection of the spark plugs was performed and the plugs appeared to be fouled by the contamination within the fuel. All plugs were cleaned and reinstalled. This time the engine ran smoothly. Mr. Scovill taxied the aircraft around the area and got the wings to rock again. As previously discovered, the engine began to run rough, and lost partial power. Additional samples were taken and again severe contamination was noted. By the time we had finished this round of sampling we had removed about 5 gallons of gas, and collected approximately a pint of dirty water. Again, the plugs were removed and cleaned then after that taxi exercise the engine continued to operate normally. The cowling was reinstalled and Mr. Scovill made a successful departure from the field and flew to the Murfreesboro airport.

I drove to the MBT airport and discussed the situation with the line service manager. Mr. Scovill had purchased fuel from MBT prior to his taking the aircraft to Mr. Cobb for the annual inspection. I had asked if there had been any complaints or reasons to suspect that the MBT fuel tanks may have water contamination. They answered in the negative, and a fuel sample of the service sumps disclosed here was not contamination in the MBT equipment.

I reported this to Mr. Scovill and we thought that the aircraft may have experienced condensation during the time it remained at Mark Cobb's facility following the annual inspection. I left the fuel sample from the aircraft and the fuel tanks at MBT with Mr. Scovill. I departed MBT at about 5:00 PM. Because there was no serious damage to the aircraft I reported to Supervisor Larry Williams that this would be called an occurrence and I would not complete anything more than an inspector statement.

George Erdel