Stuck Power Control Leads To Eclipse 500 Tire Blowout

By Chad Trautvetter

June 12, 2008
Accidents, Aircraft

Eclipse Aviation on Monday issued a “customer pilot communication” regarding an incident last Thursday in which an Eclipse 500’s main gear tires blew out during a landing at Chicago Midway Airport. But the event was more than a hard landing.

According to the communication, which Eclipse emphasizes is for “informational purposes only,” the pilot of the Eclipse 500–N612KB, registered to San Diego-based Kiernan Companies–experienced a dual engine control failure after applying forward force on the thrust levers during a wind-shear encounter on approach to Midway, “resulting in exceeding the design throttle range of operation. Eclipse said this situation resulted in an inability to control engine thrust through “normal means” and caused an “ENG CONTROL FAIL” crew alerting system message for both engines.

The Eclipse 500’s system logic “held the engine thrust settings at the last known throttle position, which was maximum. After the pilot executed a go-around, he shut down one engine since he couldn’t reduce thrust otherwise and returned for landing at Midway.

Eclipse is working with the NTSB to investigate this incident, but has issued immediate guidance to Eclipse 500 pilots to avoid excessive forward thrust lever force against the stops.

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