Gear up landing accidents

FloridaPilot

FloridaPilot

Pattern Altitude
Joined
Mar 10, 2014
Messages
2,456
Location
Florida
Display Name
FloridaStudentPilot
Home Airfield
48X
I was going through the FAA accident database and I noticed that the number one reason why planes land on the belly is because people forget to put the gear down and then mechanical. Would a landing checklist prevent this?


As always thanks for your input!

FP
 
There are some tricks and procedures to not forget the gear, then many planes will yell at you.

That said, most of us are human with the potential for mistakes. It helps keep mechanics in $$$.
 
I would say a checklist would help. Ive heard it said that one of easiest ways to forget is to have something, passenger or arc interupt your flow when going thru your landing procedure. I usually have passengers so have gotten in habit of announcing flaps and gear down and such. The noises alarm passengers if I don't. I have had several retract planes at same time and I think the slower ones would be easier to forget. My usual plane really needs gear down to slow down enough to even get to second notch of flaps. Gear down and first notch are 170kt indicated. During most decents I am right at 195 to vne of 198 indicated so I do have to watch speed. Plus if you put in second notch the alarm and lights let you know something isn't right.
 
FloridaPilot said:
I was going through the FAA accident database and I noticed that the number one reason why planes land on the belly is because people forget to put the gear down and then mechanical. Would a landing checklist prevent this?....
Click to expand...

a 'landing checklist'..................BRILLIANT! as the brits say.

heh, a 'checklist'.........who'da thunk it?!?
 
and.....don't forget.


flaps down....to go down, then flip the gear lever. :eek:

short final....gear check.
 
Last edited:
Get into the habit of saying "gear down" when making your downwind/base call.

"----- traffic Arrow 1AB is gear down left base for 5 ------ traffic"

Of course a checklist will play a role in these accidents and it's something I haven't quite understood, especially when the gear horn is blaring on final. Either they can't hear it or become preoccupied. Either way, flow checks are key as with any airplane.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
The best thing is to have a horn that beeps when you throttle back with the gear up - that way there is no way you can screw up.
Click to expand...

To be fair to these guys, I have flown a few planes where the gear warning horn does not come through the headsets...

Most planes I fly have a radar altimeter that will sound off if below 100agl and the gear is not down. One time the radar altimeter when haywire and started giving me a gear not down at 14,000 feet. Being around 2am, dark, radios quiet, it certainly woke me up.!!
 
Flows and checklists.

I'll go gear down 1 dot off the glideslope, or 3nm for the FAF, or abeam the numbers, say it around

Short finial I double check, say it aloud

As I start to settle into my landing sight picture, check again, say it aloud.


Fly these and it'll change the way you look at gear position

 
James331 said:
Flows and checklists.

I'll go gear down 1 dot off the glideslope, or 3nm for the FAF, or abeam the numbers, say it around

Short finial I double check, say it aloud

As I start to settle into my landing sight picture, check again, say it aloud.


Fly these and it'll change the way you look at gear position

Click to expand...


Green and Blue lights man. Green and Blue.....
 
Checklists are supposed to catch it. They're only as good as the pilots who use them though.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
The best thing is to have a horn that beeps when you throttle back with the gear up - that way there is no way you can screw up.
Click to expand...

That appears to be a 172RG. The gear horn ALSO goes off if the flaps are set at 20 with the gear up, regardless of the throttle, in that model. Though the sight picture suggests he may have tried to land with no flaps. The nose is rather high in the flare.

The first hint was that he needed a bit of slip to get it down.

It's easy to tune out gear horns, so I keep a rule that if the gear horn goes off, it gets silenced somehow. Either by taking the throttle (or flaps) up or the gear down. The ONLY exception is for simulated engine failures (and those get briefed ahead of time).
 
About 25 years ago, a very good CFI taught me to pump my brakes on short final. That was in a 182, now my standard callout on short final is 3 green, no red, got brakes. It's worked so far. :)
 
Gear down going down, check for green light.

Then, I check the green gear light after every time I enter more flaps.

Last chance to check to not land on my belly:
As soon as I can clearly read the numbers on final with a paved runway, I check for a green light

(On grass, as soon as I can see the threshold demarcation clearly, I check for a green light).
 
Ryanb said:
Get into the habit of saying "gear down" when making your downwind/base call.
Click to expand...
Saying it does nothing unless you check to see if the lights are on.

My instructor drilled into us that a STANDARD short final check is always to check "THREE GREEN" out loud. If you didn't say it during training, it was considered a "fatal" error.
I've never come close. Even the time I was doing the "impossible turn" back after an engine failure my "short final" checks came in by rote and I remembered to drop the gear.
My instructor let my wife get a lot closer to the ground without lowering the gear than I could stand in the backseat.
 
I always give the verbal green down and I develop a routine. If you are familiar with your airplane there should be plenty of signs that the gear isn't down. Difficulty getting your speeds set, noise, turbulent feel, possibly pitch attitude. Mine is a little easier to remember as with it up I would never get slowed down to my approach speed. If all else fails I have a gear warning switch on the throttle that goes off when it's pulled to idle with the gear up.
 
Use GUMPS..."U" is for Undercarriage. But to use GUMPS, you must use GUMPS. :D
 
GUMPS x 3. First one when entering the pattern and putting the gear down, base, then final.
 
flyingron said:
Saying it does nothing unless you check to see if the lights are on.

My instructor drilled into us that a STANDARD short final check is always to check "THREE GREEN" out loud. If you didn't say it during training, it was considered a "fatal" error.
I've never come close. Even the time I was doing the "impossible turn" back after an engine failure my "short final" checks came in by rote and I remembered to drop the gear.
My instructor let my wife get a lot closer to the ground without lowering the gear than I could stand in the backseat.
Click to expand...
Of course it doesn't, but the idea is to say it after the gear has been lowered and then use the phrase as a confirmation that it is down w/ 3 greens.

Lowering the gear during the GUMPS check and verbally saying out loud "Gear down......3 greens" is the first measure and then following it up with the announcement "Arrow 2AB is gear down, left base 5" as a second confirmation. You can never have enough checks that the gear is indeed down and locked.
 
Hi FloridaPilot. I think the checklist would prevent it IF it is used religiously. The biggest contributor that I see (and I am not a retract pilot and don't plan to be) is distractions of one sort or another. I know and/or know of several pilots, most who are very experienced, who have landed gear up. One was a CFI and another a DPE. If guys like that can screw up, I know I am easily distracted so better just stay with down and welded. A lot of the pilots here have flows or procedures to prevent gear up landings and I sincerely hope they continue to work well for them. The airplanes don't deserve to be landed gear up. :)
 
I check gear three times, and three times only. Anymore than that and I will start second guessing myself. And the flow comes first. The printed checklist is just that, a list to check to see if I forgot anything. And it is different, depending if its an IFR approach or VFR approach.

I don't expect lowtimers or pilots that only fly a couple hundred hours a year to do like I do. Develop what works and stick with it.

Remember, there are three kinds of pilots: Those who have, those who will, and those who will again....
 
ircphoenix said:
I hear the gumps check for retractables is different from straight legs...

G is for gear.
U is for undercarriage.
M is for make sure the gear is down.
P is for put the gear down.
S is for sure hope the gear is down.
Click to expand...

I always do the GUMP check for fixed gear as well as retract gear.
 
Last edited:
Does a landing checklist help you remember to reduce power? Does it help you to deploy flaps? Does it help you to lower the gear?

A checklist helps accomplish whatever the specific checklist is designed for. It's up to the pilot to figure out how and when to use checklists for them.

Personally, I do a gumps check: entering the pattern, abeam the numbers, on base, on final, on short final, at the IAF, when commencing vectors to final, when established on the approach, at the FAF and short final. I've done the same for non-complex, complex, single/multi and helicopter(need to finish one day), even though they all have different requirements.
 
I have to admit I do not use check list but when it comes time to land first thing I do to slow down is put gear down. Its mostly memory item and it has became second nature. It has worked for past 13 years and close to 1800 landings in RG
 
It's a horrible situation. Each of us here has our sure-fire, idiot-proof method of never being That Guy, to assure ourselves it can't happen to us -- yet it continues to happen every week... to us!

"Oh, I do this, I do that, I will never ____, if this distraction happens, I will____."
Yet, in reality, All of us here could easily be That Guy!

Those guys in the cockpit who we see sliding down the runway, those guys we read about in incident reports, those guys we read about in the news - are Us!

Somehow I think it helpful (I am not sure how yet) to remove the imagined barrier between That Guy, and ourselves - in our minds. It could happen to you, me, any POA member. It has happened to POA members. It has happened to close friends who I consider excellent pilots, some with 5-digit hours in their pilot logbook, who have never done it before, some with dozens of years in many models of a/c.

We are all That Guy; none of us are immune.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
Each of us here has our sure-fire, idiot-proof method of never being That Guy, to assure ourselves it can't happen to us -- yet it continues to happen every week... to us!
Click to expand...

Fixed gear, baby!! (With wheel pants for modesty. :))
 
I also use the gump mnemonic and have it in my routine for entering pattern, abeam touchdown and turn to final. For Ifr I have similar check points.

We had a fatality after a gear up touch and go at our airport similar to the one referenced earlier. If your prop strikes, LAND. You are only out your insurance deductible, not out your life.
 
n9144p said:
I also use the gump mnemonic and have it in my routine for entering pattern, abeam touchdown and turn to final. For Ifr I have similar check points.

We had a fatality after a gear up touch and go at our airport similar to the one referenced earlier. If your prop strikes, LAND. You are only out your insurance deductible, not out your life.
Click to expand...

That is exactly right! More than likely the airplane is not airworthy if there is a prop strike, the engine needs to be examined possibly overhauled.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top