Gear up landing at night

fascinating. folks around the FBO here recognize the name. Funny thing is there is nothing on the Des Moines NBC stations website.
 
The article is certainly clear about it being an intentional belly landing due to mechanical problems with the gear. Much better than a pilot-error gear-up landing. I would assume the tower was aware of it before he came in, so there will be no doubt about that. Just maintenance questions to check into.
 
I'm not a big fan of calling gear ups "Crash Landings" but that was an impressive amount of sparks!
 
Between the potential for mechanical issues and the potential for pilot error, you can sure see why a RG is more expensive to insure.
 
I don't want to say the pilot has "improved" his story after the fact, but look at the plane carefully the first half of the slide. The position lights and landing lights are on and you can see instrument light glow from the panel. But in the article the article reports, "...."Just before we touched down, I shut off the engine, shut off the gas to the engine and shut off all the connections," he said.

Lawyer said he has hundreds of flight hours logged and that followed the procedures he learned in flight school."

Pretty clear he switched off when down on the runway. Perhaps this is not so clearly mechanical after all? Would help to know if he advised the tower of the problem before the sparks were flying. It really helps your credability if EVERYTHING you put in your report will match the video of the event.:yes:
 
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according to the article i saw. he was based at osceola, which is about 30 miles south of des moines. when he got to osceola the gear wouldnt come down so he went to des moines where emergency crews area available. obviously people knew he was coming as the video crew was ready. this was not unintentional.
 
That makes perfect sense. But the lights were still on. Perhaps talking to the tower all the way in, and switched off late.
 
Dwight B. Van Zanen said:
Would help to know if he advised the tower of the problem before the sparks were flying. It really helps your credability if EVERYTHING you put in your report will match the video of the event.:yes:
Click to expand...

The fact that the emergency vehicles are already staged (you can see their flashing lights adjacent to the runway) would tend to make me think he informed them he was coming in with an issue.

This made me realize/remember: driving home on Tuesday this week, with big thunderstorms all around the DFW area (ground stop in effect at DFW), I was listening to my scanner and heard an American Flyers twin based out of KFTW call in that he was inbound with one shut down and feathered.
 
update - According to KCCI Channel 8 news out of Des Moines, the pilot is making a claim against Signature Flight Service in DSM accusing them of damaging the linkage on the airplane when moving it out of the hangar. Preflight Inspection anyone?
 
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