Date: Thursday October 23, 2008
Departure: 15:15 local time
Routing: South across the Sea of Okhotsk to Khabarovsk
Aircraft: Flight Club Red Dash-8
Altitude: 22,000 feet
Miles: 863
Arrival Stats: 17:30 local time, which works out to about 265 mph
Notes: Real-Weather was still showing clear skies Thursday afternoon - I'd been in Magadan for about 50 hours. So far as anyone could tell my plane was back in smooth working order and I was ready to go. The route today was pretty simple, head south across the Sea of Okhotsk making landfall near the River "reka" Amur and following that south to Khabarovsk a city that Wikipedia describes as, "the administrative center and the largest city of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia. It is located some 30 km from the Chinese boarder and is the second largest city in the Russian Far East after Vladivostok. 
The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia in 2002 with a population estimated at 579,000."
The city became the administrative center of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia in 2002 with a population estimated at 579,000."Take off was uneventful, and I climbed through 4,000 feet before being cleared to turn south and pick up my GPS route. 
I continued climbing up to 22,000 feet and settled in for a comfortable three-hour cruise.
I continued climbing up to 22,000 feet and settled in for a comfortable three-hour cruise."Three-hour cruise" should give some warning as to what happened next. I was watching the beautiful sunset, some 210 miles from Khabarovsk when the horizon began buffeting around. 
Turbulance? Outside view showed a smooth flight but inside was horrible. I checked the gauges and found that the torque of my number two engine was about half that of number one. Sure enough, my number two was dis-assembling right there in mid flight at 22,000 feet! I tried pulling the throttles back with no effect. I tried the prop-sync switch off and on with no effect. Back to outside view and I had smoke now trailing from the engine. I pulled the fuel and condition levers back and shut down the motor. Then, I commenced a slow (200-300 fpm) descent to 5,000 feet.
Turbulance? Outside view showed a smooth flight but inside was horrible. I checked the gauges and found that the torque of my number two engine was about half that of number one. Sure enough, my number two was dis-assembling right there in mid flight at 22,000 feet! I tried pulling the throttles back with no effect. I tried the prop-sync switch off and on with no effect. Back to outside view and I had smoke now trailing from the engine. I pulled the fuel and condition levers back and shut down the motor. Then, I commenced a slow (200-300 fpm) descent to 5,000 feet.Around 150 miles I began noticing some odd flashes outside the window. Was the video card going out now too? Nope, I was skirting some local thundershowers! This was just great!! I continued on ...
I had the VOR on the gauge and finally the ILS for 23L came alive. I disconnected the autopilot at 15 miles and trimmed out at 2,500 feet. Lightning still flashed about but not too near. I gradually added flaps and retrimmed. Finally at around 10 miles I had the runways in sight and headed in for runway 23R (the shorter, smaller, non-ILS runway) figuring if I botched it up the airport could remain open. 
The gear dropped down on schedule. I kept my approach on the steep side so that I didn't have to add throttle and yaw myself out of position. I flared with heavy left rudder and glided down smoothly. Spoilers up but only reverese idle to slow down. I was able to taxi off at mid-field and headed over the the emergency vehicles that were standing by.
Wow ~ That was some fun!
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