PA-34 Seneca Undifferentiated
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 100; Flight Crew Total 12000; Flight Crew Type 340
Troubleshooting; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical
Flight Crew Inflight Shutdown; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Human Factors; Procedure
On date; at XA:35am; I was the Pilot-in-Command; and only occupant; of Aircraft X; a Piper Seneca II; performing a takeoff on Runway XX at ZZZ. The weather was fair; with 'CLR' skies reported; though maybe a high haze layer present; and relatively calm winds. I am a 12;000+ hour pilot with approximately XX;XXX multi engine (mostly jet); and 340 hours in Senecas [the majority] recently as PIC (Pilot in Command) in the incident airplane; which I own. The night before the incident; I drove to the hangar to plug in the Tanis engine pre-heaters. At the time of engine start the next day; the engine oils were 75 and 77 degrees F with the OAT being about 34 degrees. The taxi-out and run-up were normal. By the time of takeoff; both oil temps were reading 138. The static power and propeller RPM performance during takeoff were normal. After selecting gear up and beginning the turn to the 270 noise-abatement heading; I got a flashing 'TIT' high-temperature warning coming from the right engine (later determined; through engine monitor download; to have resulted from an uncommanded 3.5 GPH increase in the right engine fuel flow). I have the TIT alarm set at 1600 degrees -- even though the red line is 1650; just to give a bit of a buffer. However; the engine was reading even above the red line at 1696 TIT; a number I have number seen before after takeoff; and a number that was about 250 degrees hotter than the left engine; running at the same power and prop and full mixture setting. In addition to the TIT; every right-engine cylinder's EGT was considerably hotter than the left engine (although there is no high EGT alarm trigger). Since the plane was light and the air was cold; I was climbing well to traffic pattern altitude; so I decided I had extra performance available to pull the power back a little bit to bring the temperature down on the right engine; but that did not do much of anything. I decided to discontinue the flight - which was originally supposed to go VFR over to the ocean and down south; to a traffic pattern and land right away because I know my airplane well enough to know that those temperatures were not normal. About on crosswind; and approaching traffic pattern altitude; the right engine propeller felt like it was surging once in response to a power change; though I wasn't touching any engine controls. A few seconds later; as I was established on the downwind for Runway XX; the engine had about a 2X/second backfiring sound; though it was high-pitched (almost a knock or a snap) and not particularly powerful nor alarming in and of itself. A few seconds later; all power was lost in the right engine. Fuel starvation or exhaustion is not in play: I began the flight with 58.2 gallons in the left tank and 57.9 gallons in the right tank. I debated diverting to ZZZ1 due to the longer runways; wider runways; available fire trucks; and lack of a large electrical transmission towers at the end of the runway like ZZZ has; but I figured discontinuing the flight at the 'nearest suitable airport' would still render ZZZ as the nearest suitable airport; It would be hard to argue that the airport where the plane is based wouldn't be considered suitable. So; I continued the traffic pattern single-engine and landed somewhat uneventfully on Runway XX. The windmilling propeller stopped during the landing rollout. I turned off the fuel selector to prevent any chance of a fire breaking out now that I was on the ground. I managed to taxi back to my hangar and put the aircraft away. Upon opening all of the engine cowlings; no obvious engine damage showed; except for a few small 'dots' of burned-looking carbon debris; and a few drops of oil; under the turbocharger; but it wasn't a lot; and it may have come from anywhere. The engine remained 'intact;' and did not shed parts; self-destruct; explode; or catch on fire; that I am aware. The frustrating element in this is that the airplane only has about 80 hours since a major maintenance project wasconducted on the airplane; soon after I bought it; where we conducted 'firewall-forward' overhauls on both engines; propellers; mounts; hoses; accessories . . . everything. Additionally; just 3 flights prior to this; the airplane came out of annual from the maintenance facility at ZZZ. I understand that things fail unexpectedly; but I feel that an engine that suffers a complete power loss; only 80 hours after a firewall-forward overhaul; which is also only about 10 hours after an annual; means some people have missed stuff. At least that's my initial emotional response to the event.The fortunate element in success here; I feel; was that the pilot was as well prepared as I could be for the event. I don't mean to pat myself on the back; but just speaking factually: I am a former Captain at a regional airline; and I am now an Embraer [model] Captain. I recently finished my recurrent simulator training in the Embraer just last month; and I had added a Hawker type rating [earlier this] year. I have therefore done a significant amount of recent real-world flying as well as simulator emergency training. Additionally; in this incident I was flying my own aircraft out of my home base; at light weight with no significant terrain or weather on a cold morning. I had slept well; felt rested and healthy; and was not in a rush. The engines were already warm; and I had a lot of fuel on-board. It was daylight. I feel like all of these factors that I just listed all added 'solid cheese' to the 'Swiss cheese' model of accident causes; putting enough blockers in the way to prevent this from easily being able to have ended in a fatal accident.
PA-34 Pilot reported an engine failure in flight and elected to make an immediate air turn back and precautionary landing at the departure airport.