Nickathome
Well-Known Member
While sitting in my plane getting strapped in and ready to start up this afternoon, I became a front row witness to a hand propping incident that almost got ugly....Fortunately, the man who came over to help the pilot, was standing by the right wing strut and was able to get into the cockpit and got to the throttle and was able to shut down the engine. However not before the plane(an Aronca Champ) had made three complete revolutions before he shut it down. I sat in amazement for a few seconds while this all played out 50 yards from me. It then dawned on me, that I was in danger. Suddenly thoughts of that plane careening toward me, then prompted me to action. I immediately fired up my Cessna and stepped on some hard right rudder pedal to get out of the plane's potential path. Just as I started to exit stage left, it was all over. I later found out the pilot (and plane's owner) had flooded the engine while attempting to start it by himself. He tried to "clear" the engine and had put on full throttle, but he had left his mags turned on and it roared to life. This was with the pilot outside the aircraft the whole time. It was a wonder he wasn't killed.
If you've ever watched that youtube video(type in "hand propping accident"), you will have seen the exact situation that happened today. The only difference was in the youtube video, it went horribly wrong and the man got injured and parked planes got trashed. Fortunately today's incident didn't end that way and noone was hurt and no damage resulted, however it could have gone very bad very quickly had it not been for the quick actions of the innocent helper. He was shaken up pretty bad by the incident but luckily not hurt..
Be careful out there guys! If you have an aircraft that requires hand propping, please get help. If you can't start the engine, ask for assistance.......
If you've ever watched that youtube video(type in "hand propping accident"), you will have seen the exact situation that happened today. The only difference was in the youtube video, it went horribly wrong and the man got injured and parked planes got trashed. Fortunately today's incident didn't end that way and noone was hurt and no damage resulted, however it could have gone very bad very quickly had it not been for the quick actions of the innocent helper. He was shaken up pretty bad by the incident but luckily not hurt..
Be careful out there guys! If you have an aircraft that requires hand propping, please get help. If you can't start the engine, ask for assistance.......
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