Hi all. I'm the pilot. Thanks for being respectful. This has been a really hard time and I delayed looking at the forums for fear of what I might see. I'm based at KDWA near Sacramento and I was returning home from KUDD near Palm Springs. I was cruising at 8,500' somewhere between KPMD (Palmdale) and the drone base which I think is 99CL (El Mirage). The plane was performing perfectly when it started bucking violently for maybe 5 seconds (although I don't trust my sense of time at this point--it may have been 1 second) and then the prop froze. There were no warnings or alerts. I went through the usual procedures to try to restart, but even with an oversized B&C starter nothing I did moved the prop. This is being investigated by the NTSB and I have an insurance company to deal with, so I'm not going to say anything about my decisions after this point, except to say that the engine out procedures we all practice didn't prepare me for having a frozen prop. The sight picture looking forward, and the effect of control inputs, didn't resemble what I'd practiced.
Once I got low enough to see details on the ground I could see that all the paved roads were lined with power poles. The terrain was desert with closely spaced mesquite mounds. I aimed for a dirt road, but as I got close I saw it was just made by tracks and had a hump in the middle with bushes growing out of it; I have (had) a nose wheel, so that was a no. I shifted to an open "lane" so to speak through the mounds and went in. It actually worked better than I expected. The soft dirt was forgiving and it slowed me down more than the hard-packed dirt would have, and I was able to keep the nose wheel up longer than I thought I would. I kept trying to steer until a large mound took the right main gear off. After that I was just along for the ride.
I have to give Van's the props it richly deserves. The gear was robust enough to stay on the plane in the soft dirt and absorb most of the energy of the landing. I'll never own a plane other than a Van's.
Now for the hard part--there's nothing left of the frame except the empennage. Despite appearances, the fuselage is buckled at the wingroots--she's gone. I'll rebuild if I can get the wreckage from the insurance company. If I do, I'll get to correct my one regret: the new N144SD won't have a nose wheel. Syrus
