How do you forget to lower the gear?

Spring Ford said:
....Gear down is not always good:-

QYGD3XKBWZDNRNNHCK3YL3VGAQ.jpg


Often a worse outcome that gear up in error.
Click to expand...
There is a YT video of a guy, up in Washington state I think, who forgot to put his gear up on his floatplane one day. His young son drowned in the crash. It was gut-wrenching to hear him tell his story. He just got distracted and forgot. Now he has to live with that memory for the rest of his life.
 
EdFred said:
Midfield, gear down. abeam, flaps 1, check gear. flaps 2 on base check gear. final, flaps 3 check gear. short final, check gear. over numbers, check gear. final power reduction, check gear.

I'm paranoid.
Click to expand...

Yes, but are you paranoid enough? Also apparently yes, paranoid enough to not gear up an airplane.
 
strangebird said:
You cant hear the gear warning horn with noise cancelling headsets is how, FAA has a bulletin about that.
Click to expand...

The horn comes through on the audio panel in our plane.

Clip4 said:
Normally pilots have a routine on when and where they lower the gear. Add distractions, break the routine and I can usually have a gear horn screaming at the pilot during a flight check.

Take a plane with an M20J with a rather low volume horn it is quite easy.
Click to expand...

It is not extremely loud, just a beeping noise. Further, in a fast slick plane like a Mooney, sometimes you're hot into the pattern and need to pull power back to get slowed down to gear extension speed. Many times I've heard that gear warning when at low MP but not ready to put the gear down yet. That can be a factor, being comfortable hearing that beeping.

Lndwarrior said:
Very cheap shot, imo.
Click to expand...

Please. If it walks, smells, swims, quacks and generally IS a duck...
 
My flow is to check on base and on final, after confirming the runway numbers, I check the lights and flag one last time. And if I have a passenger with me, I give them the task of checking as well.
In the Bo, I dont know how I could land without the gear down. The plane would never slow down without the gear out, and the sound of the airflow is way different. Not foolproof ways but its the best I got.
 
A few months ago I left the pitot cover on, would never thought that I would do that...until I did. It was actually a useful lesson I think, as far as forgetting things goes.
 
Last edited:
Just curious what the OP fly's? if he flys retractable gear airplanes he may have just jinxed himself. there are exceptional pilots with thousands of flying hours that have gear upped!
 
simtech said:
I do not have a complex endorsement....But at work on the sims I have never ever thought twice about dropping the gear. I do it out of habit. But the few times I've been in a complex I'm glad the other thought to because it never crossed my mind. I'm thinking forgetting has to do with task saturation maybe.

I wonder if most gear up happen while out of the norm stuff is going down or during a particularly focused approach?

I've been treating my Cherokee like a complex and started verbalizing gear down and locked. Hopefully when I move up to a complex I'll have it engrained in my membrane. But they are accidents and we all do bone headed moves at time.

I figure if I hear the prop hitting the concrete I'll power up and come back around. Then I have the coveted q-tip prop! Haha
Click to expand...
I have, um, Q-tipped a propeller. You aren't going around.
 
Ryanb said:
How?

We got onto a V tail Bonanza discussion over in the chat room and it reminded me of the V35A that the two owners of my FBO used to have. They ended up selling it to a guy on field and it appears that he (or someone else) had a gear up landing in it down in Muscle Shoals, AL back in 2017. I saw that it was listed on a salvage auction website and evidently someone out of OK bought it.

So it brings up the question, how in H. E. double hockey sticks does someone gear up an airplane? How do you ignore the gear warning horn? Just seems like a total bone-headed move to me.
Click to expand...

Easy. We all practice stalls, but when is the last time you practiced a gear up landing?
 
Squirrel! :eek:

:p

Yep, distractions, tired, lack of focus, ....
 
Rooney Freimund said:
I have always been told to have this mindset:
There are two types of pilots: Those who have had a gear up landing and those that will...
Click to expand...
Except that the vast majority of pilots that fly retracts have not, and never will, land gear up.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
Except that the vast majority of pilots that fly retracts have not, and never will, land gear up.
Click to expand...
Just to point out the obvious, the whole purpose of the mindset is to remind the pilot that all of us are fallible and to prevent you from having a gear up...

And, yes, I agree that most will not have a gear up landing, but your insurance premiums pay for the ones that do! :)
 
I’m in claims and have seen many, many gear up landings. CFIs, airline captains in their private planes, 10,000 sky gods. The one constant is that it’s never a low time pilot (unless training with a CFI).
 
steingar said:
...yet.
Click to expand...
Hey! I knocked on wood!

I just updated my logbook and I've got 8864 tailwheel hours. I only have slightly over 50 hours in retracts though, so far more likely to screw something up there. Also have very little nosewheel time, so a groundloop is very likely... :)
 
And then there's those pilots that forget to raise the gear.
Yes, that's an upside down Icon. Two days ago.

IMG_0528.JPG
 
Last edited:
Geosync said:
I’m in claims and have seen many, many gear up landings. CFIs, airline captains in their private planes, 10,000 sky gods. The one constant is that it’s never a low time pilot (unless training with a CFI).
Click to expand...

Many years ago I was heading to OSH, and inbound to Brainerd, Minnesota late in the afternoon for a fuel stop. Only one other plane in the air, a tandem seat, piston Pilatus moving a lot faster than me in my Cherokee. I joined downwind behind him, and just as I was turning to base he called a Mayday and informed he landed gear up and the runway was blocked.

After we landed on the other runway and taxied in the ramp attendant told us the pilot of the Pilatus was a retired Northwest pilot with a gazillion hours, based there, and he had been doing touch and goes for more than an hour before the incident.

The only thing that was different this time was a Cherokee on the radio joining the pattern.
 
Ryanb said:
i must’ve struck a nerve with you on this subject. My apologies.
Click to expand...
Oh. No you didn’t. I was just being an Internet dick. In real life it’s sarcasm but no matter how hard I try I can’t type sarcastically but I refuse to stop trying so I've just accepted that I’m perceived as a dick on the Internet.

I was being sarcastic because the obvious answer is people fly airplanes. That’s why dumb things happen in airplanes. The vagueness of the human factors statement was intentional. The causes of gear up accidents are only limited in number by the limits of human imagination but they all start with the pilot/human. So I stated the root cause.
 
I think it’s important to distinguish between “it’ll never happen to me” and “we’re all human and we’re supposed to make mistakes.” The first is unrealistic but with the right training and right mindset, the odds are the event won’t happen to that person. That’s not a hazardous attitude, it’s just accepting that not all pilots are created equal and some are predisposed to an error chain more than others. Also, the error could be flat out a haphazard violation that truly wouldn’t happen to a pilot who makes sound ADM.

In my opinion, the second attitude is a hazardous attitude, because it’ll breed mediocre performance and a lack of attention to detail. If a pilot has become accepting of their own mistakes, that’s not a pilot I’d want to fly with. Also,if one’s faculties have deteriorated to the point of multiple mistakes, then they should move on to a less risky hobby / job. Let’s face it, there comes a time where the mind isn’t up to speed with the aircraft. Combine that with an over aggressive attitude with not following strict standards and you have an accident waiting to happen. A particular C414 pilot comes to mind.

This crew forgot to put their gear down. Does the AF leadership simply look at this as to err is human, or do they examine the facts and determine this isn’t the appropriate performance that they expect from their crews?

https://theaviationist.com/2009/02/09/c-17-gear-up-landing-in-bagram-images/
 
Last edited:
Most notably, distraction. I.E.

  • guy in the pattern cuts you off
  • tower changes you from landing 26R to 26L
  • your engine monitor flashes an odd light at an odd time

all of this is fodder to cause a gearup.

Fatigue is another direct cause.

Task-saturation is another cause.

The human machine has its limits, and the wisdom is in understanding when you're near the breaking point before allowing it to happen to you.

If you fly a retract, you should have gone up with a safety pilot, or an instructor, and tried a gear-up approach, just to see how birdie flies with the wheels up. It's way different in most planes. Generally, it doesn't slow down very well. It's difficult to get it to the flap speed, and just doesn't "Feel right". That, and the gear up horn should be blasting in your ear.

My dad's Turbo Lance still has the auto-extension system factory-installed. For a list of reasons, people vilified that system, and it was recommended to have it removed. I dunno. I liked it. My Lance has the system removed. Wish it was still there.
 
It happens because of lots of factors. We had a crew a few months ago forget to put the gear up and were wondering why they weren’t accelerating and climbing so slowly.
 
One of the many reasons I don't do touch & goes in my complex single is you get the gear out of sequence and you can have a bad day. We Mooney pilots go back and forth about this, but I think a complex single can be very busy on takeoff and equally so on landing. Combining all that with the numerous distractions in the landing pattern environment just seems like asking for trouble to me. Probably lots will disagree,and who knows, perhaps they're right. Just how I see it.
 
A club I used to belong to had 2 Piper Arrows primarily used for complex and commercial training. (We had a Lance for traveling.) They had multiple gear up landings over the 8ish years I was a member. Perhaps 2 each? It's easy to get distracted and if you don't do a multiple point check religiously all it takes is a distraction at the normal place you put gear down and bang. (To be fair, at least one of those gear ups according to the flight instructor I was working with-whose commercial student did it- was the nose gear collapsing after landing. It was clear it wasn't a full gear up as in mains and all.)

But I'll throw this in, though maybe none of you will ever want to fly with me for admitting this, I had one day where I started the C-172 three times and killed it immediately but pulling the mixture and pushing in the throttle while being absolutely sure I was pulling the throttle and pushing in the mixture. Once I figured out what I'd done, I stopped for a few minutes, collected my thoughts and asked myself very seriously if I should go fly that day. I did with no further issues, but it was a real time of soul searching. I'd had my certificate for a few years at that point and had somewhere between 100 and 200 hours in C-172s. How could I screw up something so simple? Brain cramp. Nobody is immune.
 
jordane93 said:
It happens because of lots of factors. We had a crew a few months ago forget to put the gear up and were wondering why they weren’t accelerating and climbing so slowly.
Click to expand...

Several years ago I was a passenger on a Dash 8, sitting behind the wing. I could see the left main tires. I noticed that on climbout the gear was still down, and was still down as the plane leveled off at altitude. I was wondering if I should bring it to someone's attention when I heard and felt a power reduction, followed by the tires disappearing....then power back up to cruise... ooops....:lol:

One night, this incredibly handsome pilot was departing Albuquerque at night. I noticed these 3 bright green lights on climb out and noted that they were distractingly bright. As I was looking for someway to dim the lights, I noticed the gear handle...... ooops...:lol:
 
The single-seat Mooney M18 Mite had an effective gear warning system -- a big red flag that waved back and forth like a windshield wiper in front of the pilot's nose:

M18 panel.jpg


Zeldman said:
Several years ago I was a passenger on a Dash 8, sitting behind the wing. I could see the left main tires. I noticed that on climbout the gear was still down, and was still down as the plane leveled off at altitude. I was wondering if I should bring it to someone's attention when I heard and felt a power reduction, followed by the tires disappearing....then power back up to cruise... ooops....:lol:
Click to expand...

https://onemileatatime.com/air-india-plane-diverts-after-pilots-forget-to-retract-landing-gear/

"The Airbus A320 had to divert to Nagpur due to a fuel shortage, which was caused by the pilots forgetting to retract the landing gear."
 
The answer to the question really is, task saturation and/or distraction.
to this day, we still have pilots sitting the wrong flap setting in the airliners we fly. There's two pilots watching this and even a checklist to verify, but that does not account for all distractions.

At a couple of hundred feet above the ground, take the time to verify the gear's down. Touch the handle, say it out loud and see it with your eyes. If this feels rushed at this altitude, you are distracted.

it is crazy difficult to recognize distraction in ourselves. The only way to combat this is to have guideposts along your flight.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
Start with not proficient in the airplane. Add in not in the habit of using checklists. Then make 98% of your flights at a quiet uncontrolled field. Then go to a busy towered field that you're nervous about flying into and get a clearance of 'Nxxxx make long straight in rwy x, keep your speed up, jet traffic 6 miles in trail'.

I know of a pilot who played out that kind of scenario. He didn't understand why the stall horn was going off every time he pulled the power back. So he just flew it with partial power down over the numbers, pulled the power and flared. It was very short roll out. He sat staring at the panel wondering how he'd just done what he'd done until he heard a voice outside the plane and look up and saw a fireman in a silver flame suit standing next to the wing asking him if he was ok.
 
I wondered how too until I started flying different planes back to back frequently. Some complex, some simple. Now I worry about doing it after making 20 landings in the fixed gear plane
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Start with not proficient in the airplane. Add in not in the habit of using checklists. Then make 98% of your flights at a quiet uncontrolled field. Then go to a busy towered field that you're nervous about flying into and get a clearance of 'Nxxxx make long straight in rwy x, keep your speed up, jet traffic 6 miles in trail'.

I know of a pilot who played out that kind of scenario. He didn't understand why the stall horn was going off every time he pulled the power back. So he just flew it with partial power down over the numbers, pulled the power and flared. It was very short roll out. He sat staring at the panel wondering how he'd just done what he'd done until he heard a voice outside the plane and look up and saw a fireman in a silver flame suit standing next to the wing asking him if he was ok.
Click to expand...

I think you're correct here except the "Start with not proficient in the airplane". Personally, when I'm feeling not proficient, I'm way more vigilant and "sitting up straight and paying attention". It's when I've done this a million times that I get sloppy.
 
jsstevens said:
I think you're correct here except the "Start with not proficient in the airplane". Personally, when I'm feeling not proficient, I'm way more vigilant and "sitting up straight and paying attention". It's when I've done this a million times that I get sloppy.
Click to expand...
Good point. I could see it happening that way as well.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top