Near-total loss of oil quantity caused an instructor and his student to make an emergency landing at...

Attributes
ACN	838692
Time
Date	200905
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	WA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Small Aircraft
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Climb
Route In Use	None
Flight Plan	None
Component
Aircraft Component	Oil Storage
Person 1
Function	Instructor
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 140 Flight Crew Total 666.6 Flight Crew Type 26.2
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical

Narrative:

Initially my student and I climbed to 2;500 ft to stay outside of the nearby class bravo airspace. Later we initiated farther climb with full power settings. Right after adding full power I started to smell something which I thought was exhaust gas getting into cockpit. Reaching altitude about 2800 ft MSL I saw that the engine oil pressure gauge was at zero. My immediate decision was to reduce power and divert to the nearest airport which was about 3 NM south of our present position. Because engine oil temperature gauge was on the cold side I decided to keep the power on idle instead of shutting the engine down and continue with precautionary landing to investigate the problem. I announced our position and intentions; there was no one in the traffic pattern during this time. After we landed we vacated the active runway and shut down the engine. We saw that the right side and bottom of the cowling was covered in oil. We lost almost all 5.5 quarts of oil.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Near-total loss of oil quantity caused an instructor and his student to make an emergency landing at a nearby airport.

Narrative: Initially my student and I climbed to 2;500 FT to stay outside of the nearby class Bravo airspace. Later we initiated farther climb with full power settings. Right after adding full power I started to smell something which I thought was exhaust gas getting into cockpit. Reaching altitude about 2800 FT MSL I saw that the engine oil pressure gauge was at zero. My immediate decision was to reduce power and divert to the nearest airport which was about 3 NM south of our present position. Because engine oil temperature gauge was on the cold side I decided to keep the power on idle instead of shutting the engine down and continue with precautionary landing to investigate the problem. I announced our position and intentions; there was no one in the traffic pattern during this time. After we landed we vacated the active runway and shut down the engine. We saw that the right side and bottom of the cowling was covered in oil. We lost almost all 5.5 quarts of oil.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.