20030118010759A

(-23) Re: description of the incident of N115HF on January 18th, 2003. James prichard; prior to departing on a flight from lzu to vld, I filed an IFR flight with the macon flight service station. I also received a standard weather briefing, which contained no significant weather. Prior to starting the airplane, I performed a pre-flight of the aircraft using a photocopy of the checklist from the operator's manual. I found the aircraft to be airworthy, nothing unusual, wiht over 12 quarts of oil in each engine. The fuel tanks had just been "topped-off" by aircraft specialist jet center. I started the engines, obtained information india "1645Z, winds 270 @ 6, visibility 7, sky clear, temperature -3C dewpoint missing altimeter 30.21" from gwinnett tower. At about 1706Z, I requested my IFR clearance and taxied to the run-up area. During the run-up I found nothing unusual with the aircraft. I took off, headed south and the first 40 minutes of the flight were unremarkable. Shortly after macon, I turned my fuel pumps on, and switched my fuel selector valves from the mains to the auxiliary, waiting about two minutes between engines. Somewhere between approximately five and ten minutes afterswitching fuel tanks, I lost power from the left engine. The RPM gauge showed that the propeller speed was very erratic between 1600 and 2900 RPM slightly overspeed at times. My initial impression was that a mag on the left engine had gone bad again. We had just lost a mag on that engine the previous week and had it replaced. The initial symptoms appeared to be identical. However, I switched my fuel selector valves back to the main tanks and there was no improvement in performances. I then proceeded to follow the emergency action item checklist that I had committed to memory. In this aircraft: autopilot disconnect; mixtures forward; props forward; throttle max available power; gear up; flaps up; I proceeded to identify and verify for sure that the left engine had failed by using the throttle and decided to feather it due to the erratic rpms. I then pulled out the emergency checklist to verify that I had not skipped a step. I decided not to restart the engine to prevent the possibility of being unable to feather it again. I declared an emergency with jacksonville center and requested vectors to the nearest airport and was given vectors to the Fitzgerald, GA airport. I was about 20 miles away. Being fully aware that they were full, I switched the fuel selector valves back to the auxiliary tanks. As a was setting up for a three to four mile modified base (I was trying to get to the airport as quickly as possible), the right engine began losing power. Since there was at least a mile of swamp and woods in between me and the airport, so I opted to land in the cornfield directly straight ahead to assure the safety of my family. I instructed my family to assume the crash landing position, to tighten their seat belts and to prepare to exit the aircraft after it comes to a complete stop. Just prior to touch down, I pulled both mixtures to cut off, feathered the right engine, switched my fuel selector valves to off, and turned off the master to minimize the possibility of fire. As I touched down as slow as possible, it appeared that the airplane would roll out with no damage however, a deer stand popped up in front of me. I was able to steer to the left of the stand, but when I attempted to steer back away from some pine saplings, the aircraft skidded in the sandy soil, and would not respond to rudder inputs. At that point the plane stumbled over a small ridge in the field and the left wing made contact with a small pine tree and we nosed over. The aircraft did not catch on fire. No one was injured in the least. My entire family exited the aircraft and walked about two miles to the nearest road to get a ride to the airport where we received a ride to Fitzgerald airport.