Piper PA 23, N2401Z, 10 August 2010
Piper PA 23, N2401Z
Summary:
The first flight of the day departed Filton with full fuel tanks, landed at Cardiff and flew on to Southampton. On departing Southampton the pilot needed to use excessive right aileron and elected to divert to Bournemouth, declaring a PAN. A go-around was flown from the initial approach to Runway 26 due to positioning problems associated with the control difficulties. The pilot then declared a MAYDAY and elected to carry out a flapless landing on Runway 08. The surface wind was reported as 240°, 14 kt. The touchdown was normal but with the higher speeds associated with the flapless landing, together with the 13 kt tailwind component and wet runway conditions, the pilot decided to overrun rather than risk bursting the tyres. The aircraft came to rest on the grass past the end of the runway. No injuries or aircraft damage were reported. The control difficulties arose from a fuel imbalance; the port tanks were found full. The pilot reported that the previous pilot had reported issues with asymmetric fuel readings and so had tried cross-feeding the fuel. The accident pilot stated that he had missed the cross-feed item of the check list at the beginning of the day due to being distracted by a flat battery. He has since amended his own checklist.
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A correction was published concerning this report in the March 2011 issue of the Bulletin