New2view's Blog   Life on The Blue Marble

We had been visiting my parents with my daughter Yvette in White Rock B.C., and were about to fly home to Victoria from the Blaine Washington airstrip, (now permanently taken out of service unfortunately).

It was dusk and visibility was restricted as we boarded my Mooney 20A airplane.  My parents were on hand to bid us good bye.

Taxing from an off runway parking area the front wheel went into a mud-hole, no doubt caused by a lot of rain in recent days.  The Mooney prop only had 8.5″ from tip to ground clearance.

There was no one else present at the airstrip at that time, but my dad had seen the problem and tried to get me to shut down the engine by waving his arms quite dramatically a few yards away in the landing light of the airplane.

However my youthful boldness prevailed. I gunned the engine to near full throttle to force the front wheel out of the mud-hole.  It succeeded in doing so, but not before the tip of the prop made contact with the ground!

I realized what had occurred but only observed some mud churned up in the air so concluded it wasn’t a serious issue. Continuing to the paved runway we took off for the fairly short return trip home.

Everything seemed normal as we flew over Georgia Strait waters  and Gulf Islands., although I did have some reservations, so reduced the (variable) prop speed and rpm slightly as we flew in a very dark night sky.

I don’t recall if it was when clearing customs, or after taxiing to a parking spot on Victoria airport that I made a shocking discovery; one prop tip was ‘markedly’ twisted! Thankfully the flight home had not been noticeably affected at all!

Not much more can be said about this incident. The danger had been real. No prop damage should be ignored since prop failure or even engine damage is a possibility. Thankfully the durability of my (Hartzell) propeller prevailed.  Another good lesson for a very fortunate private pilot.