Skymaster Crash in Florida?

[jchronic]

As one who lives in the low altitude/overwater world most of the time, good object lesson here to get feathered immediately and not screw around trying a restart - I'm satisfied that it's well established that a properly loaded airplane will fly just fine on one motor, especially at low altitude. The caveat is not to get in such a hurry that the wrong engine gets feathered. My procedures specify that both pilots will verify the correct engine with each other, or in a single pilot operation, touch the control and verbalize it before activating.

I'm dubious about having the gear down for a ditching for fear of a flipover, as in this case. During the couple of years we used a 336 for the marine surveys I worried about that the whole time. Would rather egress with the airplane upright and the fuselage awash than have four of us in heavy survival suits trying to extricate ourselves while hanging upside down.

But all-in-all, I'd say this guy did a pretty good job.

[Seagull Tango]

I recall a lesson I learned years ago about a high altitude engine out in a Skymaster, which was relayed by the late Carlos Tabernilla, a great 337 pilot. He lost an engine at higher altitude and, true to the book, pushed the mixtures, props and throttles all the way forward as the first step.... And the second engine immediately cut out, flooded from too rich mixture.

He got the engine restarted just fine, declared an emergency choose a nearby field and landed with the dead engine feathered. He told me that the sudden silence was a real shock, though as high as he was, he had something like 15 minutes to trouble shoot the problem and get the engine restarted, gliding down....