Never hear airlines making gear ups...

Here's one anyway....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1212858269734073275#

 

It has happened. However, these days all airliners are required to have GPWS, or TAWS, and those will give you a "whoop whoop pull up" warning if you get too close to the ground with the gear down.

Also, airlines are almost entirely operated by two pilots, which gives a second pair of eyes to detect such things, and enforces better checklist vigilance. Finally, there is a difference between being an owner-pilot and being a professional pilot-- the main difference being that as a professional pilot in a two pilot crew, if I do something stupid I'll most likely get fired, or at least chewed out.

 

Rob- Airliners have two people on board who do this for a living. They follow checklists, have a bunch of warning lights and horns go off if they screw it up, and watch approach speeds carefully and wonder why they are going faster than they should.

Only had one pilot in the F-111 forget to lower the gear. Did not like him very much so just watched until the horn came on. Mentioned it was a long reach, but I could put the gear down for him if he liked. We liked each other even less after that.

Also had one forget to raise the gear, but that is another story, even worse.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Here is the story of an infamous gear up landing in a heavy:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/military/read.main/102648/

pics:

http://cencio4.wordpress.com/2009/02/09/c-17-gear-up-landing-in-bagram-images/

Taz.... So what happens in a 111 if you over speed the gear? Nose gear door into engine? It happens occasionally with us but I have never seen any significant damage from it, the doors will blow off at some point from what I hear. Flap over speeds are more common, usually not all that eventful.

 

BTW - You didn't land gear up did you?

 

Terry, Your story reminds me of an instructor pilot at Hondo who we think suffered from the " little man syndrome". He carried a swagger stick with which he would crack the knuckles of a pilot who was unlucky enough to commit a crime , no matter how small. One day we watched a nice new AT-7 make a wheels up on the main runway paralleling the ramp in front of God and everybody else. To everyone's surprise and delight, out stepped Little Ceasar...minus his swagger stick. Bets were that the gear switch was in the down position and sure enough... We never saw the swagger stick again, either. Then, four years later I saw the same play at Sarasota Airport when another whip cracker" Mister Perfect" landed wheels up in a Widgeon. Bets were on that the gear switch was in the down position . Guess what.
Switches

 

Interesting.... so how does that effect the sale prices? Is it like a Ferrari with a story?

 

Dunno about gear ups, but the pilot of the Q400 I was in landed so hard that I am now 2 inches shorter, and it was no fun trying to pull my testicles out of my socks during taxi.

 

August 1978 Aerolineas Argentinas B737-200

During the approach to Buenos Aires the crew forgot to lower the landing gear. When the gear warning sounded, the copilot reacted by pulling the circuit breakers to silence the alarm. The approach was continued and the airplane belly landed.

Sept 2001 an Aeroflot IL-86 with 322 persons on board landing Dubai

During the approach to Dubai the pilot requested that the landing gear circuit breaker be switched off so that the flaps could be extended prior to gear extension. This was a non-standard procedure. The crew forgot to turn the circuit breaker on again. The flight engineer conducted the landing checklist, but incorrectly called gear down. No crew member checked for gear indication and since the circuit breaker controlled all landing gear indications and audio / visual warning devices, the crew were not warned about their mistake. The ILS approach to runway 30R in VMC night conditions was continued. The aircraft touched down with the landing gear up and came to rest on the runway. The nr.2 and nr.3 engines caught fire and another fire engulfed the cargo hold. All occupants were evacuated safely.

But you are correct accidents like this are rare.

 

I don't know about RGs, but once you get into turbine aircraft, damage history certainly impacts the desirability of an airplane. Doesn't much matter from a practical perspective, though.

 

Click here for video this is the sound you'll hear if you fail to put your gear down. Unfortunately for these guys, they don't even notice it!!!!

 

Then there is the B-1B that landed in Diego Garcia gear up after both pilots failed to lower it.

http://usaf.aib.law.af.mil/B-1_8May06.pdf

 

Mark- The F-111 gear overspeed limit was 300 KCAS, so not much of a problem. The main gear door was also the speed brake, so it was not going anywhere. The limit was actually left over from an earlier time before we adopted the F-111B style rear gear door, which was bolted to the undercarriage. You probably could have gone 500 ktas before causing any real problems, and those would have been ripping loose hydraulic lines, nitrogen bottle gauges, etc. Takes a lot of power to go that fast, however, and would have been really noisy.

Beast- Would be surprised if those two ever flew B-1Bs again. Must have taken a lot of power to taxi.

Quote from an F-105 pilot. "That !@#$% horn was making so much noise, I could not hear myself think." Gear warning horn, of course.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

being a newly endorsed complex/high performance driver here are my thoughts.

I did not have any gear up issues, but during my first few flights I found the workload a little overwhelming. Left the gear down too long a bunch of times. (Gear, Flaps, Making sure stuff is "green", climb speed, power/prop, lots of stuff real fast)

landing is a pretty busy phase of flight especially in weather, and not you are NOT "fresh" at this phase of flight.

I check for gear down, green light on 3 times in the pattern. (My CFI didn't endorse me until I made those checks)

I often use the gear as a speed brakes in order to get into landing configuration, so personally I find it hard to gear up in a normal approach. Missing all of the above methods - the gear up warning sounds in low power, gear up configurations.

With all that people still seem to gear up. *schrug* The pros are a pair of pilots, highly trained in the aircraft, and in CRM.

 

I have had it drilled in to my head that on short final you check "3 green, flaps landing." Always, every time, no matter what. Even in fixed gear aircraft.

 

I flew many times with Ernest Gann, writer and old airline pilot, and learned a bit about cockpit protocol in his Cessna 310. You didn't speak until spoken to when you were approaching or leaving an airport area...probably ten mile radius. His landing check list was on the cover of the knee board and main items posted on the windshield side frame. Going through the list he touched each item on the list and then the associated item on the airplane and then checked the numbers or performed the proper function.. On final there was a last sweep of items. Conversation occurred after shut down. Flying with my son is the same disciplinary exercise.
Switches

 

Habits like that seem like a pain when you're first trying to adopt them. As time goes by, it gets easier and easier until you no longer even notice that you're doing it.

Of course, I (and Capt. Gann, for that matter) had the advantage of sitting next to a hard headed Captain for around a thousand hours, so failing to follow procedures always resulted in, at best, a verbal chewing out. At worst, I could have been fired, but I learned from the beginning not to make the same mistake more than once, so that wasn't an issue.

Eventually, I became that hard headed Captain, and was probably cursed by many a first officer!

 

This isn't a gear-up, but how about landing on a taxiway instead of the runway?

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/10/21/georgia.taxiway.incursion/index.html

 

Let me guess, Tazandian - the pilot flew all the way to the destination with the gear still down, cursing how slow it was and the horrible headwinds,

And THEN put the gear up and landed...

There really is a story like this in Adolph Galland's book "The First and the Last" about German LWF pilots. Except that somebody waved him off back at the base.

 

A favorite story from Sam Hynes' very good 'Flights of Passage' involves a TBM driver who, while taxiing down the flightline, accidentally retracted his gear, dropping the airplane on its belly.

Oops.


The comments above about flight deck discipline - lists, double-checks, and efficient, clear communication - brought to mind the reasons they bring pilots in to talk to surgeons and OR staff.

 

This story was told to me when I worked at Sarasota airport after the war. A guy bought a brand new Republic Seabee and after practicing water landings he came in for a landing at Sarasota and made a nice "water landing" wheels up on the runway. After getting the airplane fixed he shot a bunch of landings at the the airport and then went to practice some more water landings in Sarasota Bay...shall I continue?
Switches