How many of you have had the experience of putting your airplane in the shop -- perhaps for an annual inspection, to correct some squawk or even for a routine oil change or spark -plug rotation -- only to discover when you get the airplane back and take it aloft for the first time after maintenance that something that used to work fine no longer does? I'd be willing to bet a steak dinner at Ruth's Chris that virtually every aircraft owner has had this experience. Heaven knows I have. More times than I'd like to count.
I agree about MIF’s. I have seen several instances of it in our shop. I was getting ready to deliver a plane and we pushed it out of the hangar, and I got in to start it. The mechanics that were working on it pushed it out and said ready to go. I pushed the throttle to the firewall and the mixture full rich and hit the boost pump for 3-4 seconds and hit the starter, POOF I was on fire. The mechanic working on the airplane forgot the bottom spark plugs and the fuel I just put into it just poured out and a spark plug lead ignited the fuel we ripped the side panels off and had a fire extinguisher handy. No damage done thank God. Our boss crashed a Mooney after takeoff, this was the first plane I ever worked on since I got hired. I installed the engine after it came back from the engine shop. It came back with all the hoses, wires, baffles and engine mount installed. Boss went out to the runup area did a quick runup and off he went. We watched him take off the wheels went up and came back down so we knew he had a problem. He crashed in a Vinyard right off the end of the runway. It took us a while to find him, but we did. He broke his back, but he was alive. When we got the plane back to the hangar, we noticed a fuel line that was torque striped was loose which caused the engine to suck air. They sued the engine shop and won.
We also saw a Mooney that crashed on takeoff that we bought for salvage. It wasn’t badly damaged. The reason it crashed was because the pilot lost elevator control and dropped it back on the runway. The Heim joint at the forward portion of the rear elevator bell crank broke off of the control rod, it hadn’t been lubed since the factory in the '60’s and this was in the 2000’s. So, Lack of maintenance in this case. The Heim joint didn’t break at the joint it was at the threaded portion. That elevator must have been stiff as heck.