Headline: Mech problem or pilot error - You decide

I'd like to see the full video shot by the witness, stills from which were in the Fox video. Note the open nose gear doors and slightly open main gear doors in the initial touchdown shot. If I had to make a guess at this point, I'd have to suspect that "Fox aviation expert" Jim Baker was right in his guess on what happened -- major league "oops."
 
The jet has since been taken out of service for an inspection, according to the Associated Press.
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Doh! :rolleyes:

NTSB Preliminary

The crew reported that they had an indication that the gear was down and locked but right before touchdown, they noticed a landing gear lever disagree.
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On the 182RG, it was drilled in to keep my hand on the gear lever until I had lights and a visual on the gear. Wouldn't be similar for an airliner? I can't imagine being in such a rush on the checklist that you slam the lever down, take your hand away and keep moving on down the checklist without first verifying "three green."
 
So-o-o-o-o...

I wonder if they have their resumes up to date?

Jim
 
FWIW, the guy who shot the stills of that incident, or accident, was told by security to stop taking photos. That just doesn't sit right with me.
 
KennyFlys said:
Doh! :rolleyes:

NTSB Preliminary


On the 182RG, it was drilled in to keep my hand on the gear lever until I had lights and a visual on the gear. Wouldn't be similar for an airliner? I can't imagine being in such a rush on the checklist that you slam the lever down, take your hand away and keep moving on down the checklist without first verifying "three green."
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Many jets have a gear handle that positively locks into position when down, and gear cycle times can be tens of seconds. So the normal process is when the PF (pilot flying) calls Gear Down, the PNF (pilot not flying) responds by pushing the handle down, and letting go of the handle, but generally doesn't report "gear down and locked, three green" until he actually has the three green lights. Some operations will have the PNF say "dropping the gear" or "gear going down" to acknowledge the order, but they don't report the gear is down until they've got the three lights.
 
deafsound said:
FWIW, the guy who shot the stills of that incident, or accident, was told by security to stop taking photos. That just doesn't sit right with me.
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That one bothered me as well.

Another question I have...

How long is the cycle for the voice and data recorders in the Embraers? Is there a minimum time period required by law? The story states they flew for an hour. I'm sure recording is for at least 30-45 minutes.

So, could it be they flew that longer period for the purpose of recording over the "Oh Sh..." that may have been said when they discovered the gear lever was not down as well as no gear-down indicators? Obviously, there's still much missing in this story.
 
deafsound said:
FWIW, the guy who shot the stills of that incident, or accident, was told by security to stop taking photos. That just doesn't sit right with me.
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I would ask the guy for his name.

There is a principle that anything publically viewable is fair game for photojournalism but that was before the TSASS was deployed.

I would imagine if they tried that with a newspaper photog it would not be the end of it.
 
snipped from the Red boards:

When investigators lifted the American Eagle Embraer 135 up on jacks, they had no problem retracting the landing gear once it was down, said Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board. But when they tried putting the landing gear down, the rear gear doors never opened, Knudson said.

The front doors opened, but the landing gear never came down, even though three lights on the pilot’s control panel indicated the gear was down and locked in place.

That’s what the pilot of Flight 4539 from Toronto to Boston told investigators happened Wednesday, after the plane touched down on its belly at 8:30 a.m., causing him to abort the landing and lower the gear with a hand crank that can used be if the plane’s hydraulic system fails, Knudson said.
 
If so, then this will most likely ground all 135's pending inspections. But, then what are they looking for? How does the gear stay up and manage to trigger switches dedicated to showing them down and locked? And, for three separate gear assemblies? Many puzzles remain!
 
Greg Bockelman said:
They won't necessarily get canned for that. Not saying that they won't but it isn't a foregone conclusion.
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In a non-union shop... it might be different!

deafsound said:
FWIW, the guy who shot the stills of that incident, or accident, was told by security to stop taking photos. That just doesn't sit right with me.
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...or any other person who believes that the truth matters.

Troska said:
snipped from the Red boards:

When investigators lifted the American Eagle Embraer 135 up on jacks, they had no problem retracting the landing gear once it was down, said Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board. But when they tried putting the landing gear down, the rear gear doors never opened, Knudson said.

The front doors opened, but the landing gear never came down, even though three lights on the pilot’s control panel indicated the gear was down and locked in place.

That’s what the pilot of Flight 4539 from Toronto to Boston told investigators happened Wednesday, after the plane touched down on its belly at 8:30 a.m., causing him to abort the landing and lower the gear with a hand crank that can used be if the plane’s hydraulic system fails, Knudson said.
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Is there no configuration warning if the systems were not indicating gear-down? In any event, I think we'll find that there was a problem of some sort in the system.
 
Well, from the pilot's perspective it's sure nice to have the investigators run a test and confirm that what you said could actually have happened. On the other hand, my company uses several 135s for our shuttle fleet. I hope the investigators find out the cause and the fix is distributed to other operators.
 
Similarily,.... I was taught to say, as pnf, "Gear selected down", then when 3 green lights, "Three green, gear down" (or some such). Same with flaps...."Flaps selected 30." Then when the indicator is where you requested, "Flaps 30" etc. (PF verifies each final indication visually too.)



TMetzinger said:
So the normal process is when the PF (pilot flying) calls Gear Down, the PNF (pilot not flying) responds by pushing the handle down, and letting go of the handle, but generally doesn't report "gear down and locked, three green" until he actually has the three green lights. Some operations will have the PNF say "dropping the gear" or "gear going down" to acknowledge the order, but they don't report the gear is down until they've got the three lights.
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