I think we all like stories with a happy ending, so here goes…..
I received an email message recently from a very nice couple who attended my monthly FAA safety seminars in Danbury, CT. They owned their own single engine aircraft and flew it regularly. Several weeks back they experienced a very real inflight engine failure and successfully landed the aircraft at the Oxford, Ct Airport. Not surprising to me that a couple who regularly attended safety seminars did a nice job of getting the aircraft safely on the ground!
As a follow up to their incident which will require an engine change, they asked me where they might find information concerning Malfunction & Defect Reports on the oil cooler that had failed on their engine. They were sending the engine to Lycoming for the repairs since that would allow the warranty to remain in effect. Seemed like a good question to me.
My ole buddies at the FAA again pointed me in the right direction:
Visit the Alerts website. This is where there is contact information and where malfunctions and defects reside. It’s at: http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/safety/alerts/aviation_maintenance/
There’s a search engine in the web page with multiple links.
All airplane owners should be aware of this resource! How come so few of us are?