Mooney successfully belly's in

Dan Truesdell wrote in news:40BCCA76.8090409
@ceaPLsofAtwNarEe.cSom:

I saw that in the Valley News yesterday. I hate to see a broken plane,
but was glad he walked away. A couple of thoughts crossed my mind:

1) Why didn't he go to BTV? Closer to Sugarbush, much longer runway
(with the wind blowing down it if it was from the Northeast). Military
crash units on the field (I presume).

2) Why didn't he shut down the engine prior to landing?

I'm not trying to be critical. I do recognize that I'm making these
observations from the comfort of my desk, not from a cockpit where I
was
just slammed into the ground hard enough to break my landing gear.



I was in a situation similar to this several years ago. Many people have
asked me why I didn't stop the prop prior to landing to save the engine.
Simply shutting down the engine will not stop the prop. You have to slow
the airplane down to practically a stall before the prop will stop
turning. I was an inexperienced private pilot at that time, and I was not
going to attempt something like that. Besides, if I screw up end up
landing short (or long), the accident will become a pilot error. If the
airplane was my own, and I did not have any hull insurance, I might have
attempted that, but I was not going to take such a risk to save the
insurance company money. I landed with the engine running, but cut the
mixture on short final. The prop was damaged and the engine had to be
torn down, but I was told that they did not find any damage to the crank
shaft.