Page 27 - Preview

engineers snuck an annunciator in without bothering to notify the POH writers.
Dave Simon, one of Beech Aircraft’s marketing staff on the international sales team, was the first pilot to experience the illumination of a chip light while flying one of the early 200s. He dutifully searched the checklist and, as I’ve made obvious, found nothing! The engine was running just fine, so he chose to continue the flight. Yes, you guessed it: Within about 30 minutes the engine blew up! Dave made a successful single engine landing and the Beechcraft team quickly verified that indeed the RGB had uncoupled. Hmmm ... perhaps we’d better address that annunciator in the POH!
A POH and checklist revision was quickly forthcoming. In fact, all of the King Air models then being produced – C90, E90, A100 and 200 – started being equipped with the annunciators and their POHs/checklists had the procedure added. And what was the procedure? “If conditions permit, shut down the engine.” In fact, some models merely added “Chip Detector Illumination” to the title of the already existing checklist “Engine Fire in Flight.” Pull the condition lever and shut that sucker down!
As Mr. Simon’s incident (and now some others) showed, there could be no abnormal engine indications
whatsoever making themselves known before the engine turned into a bomb. “If conditions permit” has never been clearly defined. The consensus seems to be that shutting down an engine because of a chip light would not be wise if the other engine had already been shut down for some other reason! Likewise, perhaps waiting to either land or execute a successful two-engine missed approach might be the wise course of action if the light illuminated while inside the FAF while executing an ILS or LPV approach with the weather hovering right at minimums.
I have two personal experiences to tell you about. One of my clients with whom I conducted recurrent training had the light illuminate on a sunny day while departing Rock Springs, Wyoming, on a flight back to Portland, Oregon. The annunciator appeared just as they were leaving the Rock Springs’ airspace. The 200 they were flying was used as a corporate shuttle and most seats were filled. Being in such good conditions, the crew went ahead and secured the engine. As they returned to Rock Springs for an uneventful single-engine landing, they hoped that the light had been triggered by some metallic “lint” instead of a significant piece of metal. This mysterious lint has indeed been the cause of some chip lights. In these cases, usually the main oil filter is inspected and if nothing significant is
AUGUST 2024
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 25