as far as i know, engine controls are ALWAYS in the center, so both pilot and copilot can access them in case of emergency, but i dont know which aircraft that is, if it is on the left, then the pilot could easily cut the mixture without us being able to see.
:facepalm:
A lot of small planes, particularly homebuilts, aren't designed for easy operation from both seats. Certificated planes, too: look at early Bonanzas, with their single throw-over yoke.
Engine controls are located to allow you to operate them with the hand that isn't controlling the stick or yoke, so you can do both at the same time. In the case where the stick is between the pilot's legs or between the pilots and is intended to be used with the right hand, the throttle will be situated to be actuated with the pilot's left hand, so they can do both at the same time. In the case of the Skyranger, this means that there
are two throttle controls (the levers with the white knobs), one for each seat.
You may also notice that there are no mixture knobs. The SkyRanger uses either the Jabiru 2200 or the Rotax 912--neither of which have mixture controls. So much for your "he cut the mixture" theory.
and a coolant malfunction could cause an overheat whenever the engine ran too long, it got its heat when it took off (full power, coolant usually does quite a bit of work) then as they restarted, they kept pushing the temperature above the thermal limit of teh engine.
Light airplane engines don't have coolant, and if the engine was in fact overheating, I don't see how that makes this video any less "real."
The correlation between right guy touching a control (switch or button) and the engine turning off. The engine did not fail by itself, it was deactivated.
:facepalm:
Are you watching the same video I am? Using TSP's original link (I've named them Orangeshirt, left, and Yellowshirt, right, for convenience):
0:03 Engine cuts out. Yellowshirt's hands are in his lap holding his camera.
0:24 Engine starts as a result of Orangeshirt cranking the starter in the middle of the panel.
0:41 Engine quits again. Neither Orangeshirt nor Yellowshirt have their hands anywhere near the panel.
0:47 Orangeshirt begins cranking the engine again. You can see the prop turn over, but the engine doesn't fire.
0:49 Yellowshirt moves his hand to the starter to take over, since Orangeshirt has to cross his left arm across his body in order to do it.
0:50 Engine restarts, Yellowshirt removes his hand.
0:53 You can hear the engine start dying again. Yellowshirt's hand doesn't reach the panel until the engine is pretty much dead.
At this point he stops trying to restart the engine--as he said in the interview I linked to at about 1:25: "He picked a place to land, he said we're goin' for the highway, it was clear, and uh, I stopped trying to restart the plane, I didn't want to screw with his landing..."
At no point does he touch any controls immediately before the engine dies.