Disclaimer: I don’t have a lot of details on this event other than hearing about it shortly after it happened and what is published in the write-up below.
We all have our preferred airplane. For me, I had a specific airplane that I wanted to take my instrument checkride in. This is the one that didn’t have an issue with the DG, I was comfortable with the audio panel and it flew well. This was N52516 and I did the majority of my IR training in it. At the end of September 2018, it was taken off the line for maintenance and it needed an engine overhaul. The school decided to do an engine swap to get it back on the line faster. When I found out it was available and finished being broken in I reserved it for my Checkride on September 28th, 2019. My checkride went fine and I had no indication of any issues with the airplane until the next time I was at the school and heard about the emergency that happened on September 30th.
Travis was also my IR instructor as well as the instructor for this student pilot. When I heard the story and saw the photos I had that initial pucker factor of “that could have been me” followed by being so happy at how this student handled herself and was able to safely land without incident. I believe I even discussed this with my wife as an example of how we do training on safety and emergency procedures early on in training.
Travis and I chatted briefly about this and what we would have done differently. Granted we could have just treated this as an IFR flight to ensure we were lined up with the runway. Not something a solo student would be expected to do. Kudos to her and how she handled herself in this scary situation.