Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Leg 2: Balchik - LB25 (Bulgaria) -> Ataturk - LTBA (Turkey)

Balchik -> Ataturk Distance: 191.9 nm
Estimated fuel burn: 47.8 gal / 286.8 lb
Estimated time en route: 1:04


A bit of rain as I left Balchick in the second  leg of my journey, but otherwise perfect weather for VFR.  The cloud layer was high at around 5000 ft so I had plenty of space to admire the view along side Bulgarian coast. Except some icing, all went ok along the way as we overflew the cities of Varna and Burgas.

Trouble happened right at the landing moment, and I was very closed of having to end my journey very abrubtly. A large fuel leak developed on final approach in Istanbul and in a few seconds I've got nothing in my tanks and engines stopped.



Fortunately I was very close of the runway and managed to glide just a bit short of it. Hit the ground pretty hard, but didn't do very big damage to the landing gear. It turned out one of the fuel feeding pipes at the engine bursted.

After blocking the runway at LTBA for a few good minutes to troubleshoot and make a quick fix, I was towed to the parking ramp. A long  night of repairs is awaiting, but hope to be back in the air tomorrow.

Hey, it could have been worsed, at least I wasn't in the middle of the ocean ;)

Departing Balcick


City of Varna


Burgas airport

Raining again... 


Bosphorus strait, turning towards Istanbul


City of Istanbul, capturing localizer for runway 24


Final approach


This is when the fuel leak started, good thing I am above LLZ


Awaiting to be towed


Time for  repairs

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