How can a pilot "forget" to put down gear in C510?

Tantalum said:
that's fair..

and trust me, I'll be just as upset with myself if ever make such an egregious error. It's part of that 'don't be that guy!' reason I check those little green lights a hundred times before landing, lest I show up on PoA .. 'wasn't he the guy that...'
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Of course, a little paranoia helps too :D

Nothin is a complete guarantee but one of the things I preach is a consistent gear down SOP, so consistent it becomes a habit.

Two opposite tales: The closest I came to a gear up was when I saw someone's else's , liked it and decided to change the one I had been using for several years (yes, I went back to my old one). OTOH, when I had an emergency, I really don't recall putting the gear down, but I did - best guess - exactly where I always put it down VFR.
 
midlifeflyer said:
The closest I came to a gear up
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I touched the gear handle (as opposed to flaps!) shortly after my complex endorsement on roll out.. that was the closest I ever came. Didn't move it, but it gave me the chills.
 
RudyP said:
A few corrections - the C510 is what I fly. In the C510, you do not get a master warning or caution light (or CAS message - which is the G1000's version of the Caution, Warning and Advisory panel). Under the conditions I showed above, you get an annoying gear warning sound which can be inhibited with a dedicated "Horn Silence" push button as long as the flaps are not in the full down position (in which case the inhibit button does nothing).

So even with the flaps not in the full down position, you'd either have to stay above 130KIAS all the way through landing (and typical Vref is around 85-95 KIAS) or you would have to press the inhibit button, or you would have to land with the horn going off. Pilot claimed to investigators that the horn did not activate... I suppose the breaker could have popped but that sounds less likely than him screwing the pooch.
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So with the C510, a high speed landing attempt with no flaps will not initiate any gear warning systems? Does the C510 have any ground proximity warning in this case?
 
Tantalum said:
I touched the gear handle (as opposed to flaps!) shortly after my complex endorsement on roll out.. that was the closest I ever came. Didn't move it, but it gave me the chills.
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I once has a case where that happened - during the complex training!

The potential for and history of that happening is a reason many preach (1) no touch & goes with retracts and (2) don't change anything until clear of the runway.
 
midlifeflyer said:
don't change anything until clear of the runway.
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Yup, that's something I started doing, as that's exactly when it almost happened. After flying FG for over a decade it was habit to retract the flaps on touchdown. Stopped doing that immediately after that near incident! Friend in the right seat looked at me too like he'd just seen a ghost.
 
lsaway said:
I was looking at the salvage aircraft offerings and came across this 2013 Cessna 510. Cause of accident is:
On December 1, 2021 the pilot forgot to lower the landing gear prior to landing at the Lake Havasu City Airport (KHII)

What warning system does this airplane have to prevent this error and aid the single pilot?
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I did my complex training in a 177RG which has similar warning horns and gear lights to what the 510 has. Late in my training we were doing multiple slow speed maneuvers with the gear up and the warning horn going off constantly. My instructor had me return to the airport and the warning horn didn't stop as we were high and close to the airport so I never powered up to head back. As we were on final, I had completely forgotten the gear, and the warning horn was nothing more than background noise that I had gotten so used to that I didn't even recognize it as something that was warning me anymore. My instructor knew the whole time what was going on and he kept asking me if I was forgetting anything. He told me to go around before we were ever in any danger and when I went to raise the gear I knew why right away. We focused on checklists and I will absolutely never forget to lower the gear again. I honestly think that having this mistake and realization during training was much better for me than if I had remembered the gear all along. By having a close call with this while under proper supervision, it really sunk in and I feel I am far better off because of it. I can definitely see where someone could tone out all of the wartnings under certain circumstances or just due to laziness and ignoring checklist usage.
 
Tantalum said:
and trust me, I'll be just as upset with myself if ever make such an egregious error. It's part of that 'don't be that guy!' reason I check those little green lights a hundred times before landing, lest I show up on PoA .. 'wasn't he the guy that...'
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While not faulting you at all for what works for you, I check the lights and mirror 3 times, and 3 times only, lest I get confused.

VFR, right before abeam the numbers gear handle down, look for 3 green one in the mirror. On base, check 3 green 1 in the mirror. After turning final and landing assured, (I put the wheels on the threshold every time unless something requires me to land long) check 3 green, one in the mirror.

IFR, precision approach, glide slope intercept gear handle down, check 3 green 1 in the mirror. FAF, check again. 1 mile final check again. It comes fast but it works for me plus keeps me orientated on the approach.

Non- precision approach. Initial approach fix, gear handle down, check 3 green 1 in the mirror. FAF check again, MDA or runway in sight check 3 green 1 in the mirror.

This might not be for everyone but has always worked for me. At anytime I don't see 3 green it is an automatic go around to trouble shoot the system. I have had only 2 green a number of times, all in Alaska. After trouble shooting and talking to maintenance I have landed probably 5 or 6 times with one light not illuminated. We usually found it was due to a micro switch covered in mud or snow. Seat still clean...
 
Tantalum said:
that's fair..

and trust me, I'll be just as upset with myself if ever make such an egregious error. It's part of that 'don't be that guy!' reason I check those little green lights a hundred times before landing, lest I show up on PoA .. 'wasn't he the guy that...'



That doesn't make it excusable. Many of these 'gear up' threads seem to resign ourselves to a collective sigh of 'well it could happen to anyone' like getting food poisoning or something. Does this happen with the big guys? Does an occasional JetBlue plane land gear up 'oopsie, had a long day, I forgot' ? There are like at least 6 checks and balances for the gear across checklists, audible and visual warnings, and the plane simply flying different


-I never said that - I'd like to think I won't because I discipline myself with lists and shame, and if it does happen to me I may just up and quit flying. If I can't be trusted to move one critical lever before landing how can I be trusted to keep myself and my passengers alive? What will I forget next..?


this I do, and people who forget it should rightfully be shamed. "I didn't hear a gear horn" is a crap excuse. You forgot, own it like a man.
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I never said anyone said anything, and I never said it was excusable.
 
lsaway said:
So with the C510, a high speed landing attempt with no flaps will not initiate any gear warning systems? Does the C510 have any ground proximity warning in this case?
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No but if you are attempting to land it at nearly twice normal landing speed with no flaps, I think you’re really trying to crash the plane, not land it… This is a straight wing citation with a very low stall speed - no one should be screaming in at 130+ KIAS to the runway even if you have a super long runway.
 
Salty said:
I got severely distracted once in the pattern flying my Mooney. As soon as I turned final with a bit of power still in (gear alarm hadn’t sounded yet because I hadn’t pulled back enough yet) I immediately knew something was wrong because I was way too fast for given power and flap settings. Started an immediate go round even though I was still 800 feet up. Went around and did it right without the morons that were trying to kill me the previous time around.

it was blatantly obvious the gear wasn’t down even without the alarm going off. With the alarm I don’t understand how you can not know something is wrong. Don’t land when something is wrong and you don’t know what it is.

maybe with a draggier aircraft it wouldn’t be so blatant, but with the mooney the gear slows you a good 15 knots. How do you not notice that on final?
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Yes, one of the things you have to learn first when transitioning to a Mooney is how to slow it down and when to start doing it. It’s a good thing I learned how to do that with my first Mooney before my current one. The speed brakes on my current one can spoil you quickly.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Like most retracts, the gear position is shown by colored indicator lights and the warning is aural.

To answer the "how can?" in the title, it's generally some combination of distraction, inattention, lack of consistent gear SOP, and absence of checklist use.

You can add to that what the FAA stated as its reason for changing the ACS slow flight – normalization of warnings.
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Those lights may not be visible. In the Arrow that our club had if the switch that controlled the panel light brightness was set wrong the lights were dimmed to the point where you couldn't see them if they were on. One of our CFIs loved to hit that switch when she thought the pilot wasn't watching so when he selected gear down the lights would not appear to turn on. I got annoyed with her antics once and slapped her hand as she went for the switch. She just laughed and didn't do it again with me.
 
RudyP said:
No but if you are attempting to land it at nearly twice normal landing speed with no flaps, I think you’re really trying to crash the plane, not land it… This is a straight wing citation with a very low stall speed - no one should be screaming in at 130+ KIAS to the runway even if you have a super long runway.
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My dad is an airport bum at that airport now. What seems to have happened (according to witnesses) was the flaps didn’t go down, and when the pilot landed they crossed the numbers somewhere around 160kts (and ADSB data showed last hit pretty close to 30’ AGL at that speed). So in my limited right seat experience in a 510 (great plane by the way), he probably wouldn’t have been slow enough to have a buzzer go off until he heard the scraping of metal on pavement. If you have flaps inop, dropping the gear is a great way to slow that plane down even if you were a little hot, there’s even a table for how to calculate landing distance with no flaps. It’s sad really, from what it sounds like the pilot (who I believe owned the plane) took a minor abnormal procedure and turned it into a totaled plane.
 
There have been a few airlines that have geared up. The one I recall was a flight into Houston (Continental) in a DC-9 (or one of its later variants). The FO was the PF and they had the "in range" checklist interrupted and never turned up the hydraulics. There was a lot of non-standard chatter mostly by the captain when they should have been paying attention. The FO noted that the airplane wasn't slowing down right and the captain essentially said "my airplane" and proceeded to land gear up.

I found the NTSB report. Haven't read it to see if my memory gibes with reality:

https://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/aircraft-accident-reports/AAR97-01.pdf
 
Nick Pilotte said:
My dad is an airport bum at that airport now. What seems to have happened (according to witnesses) was the flaps didn’t go down, and when the pilot landed they crossed the numbers somewhere around 160kts (and ADSB data showed last hit pretty close to 30’ AGL at that speed). So in my limited right seat experience in a 510 (great plane by the way), he probably wouldn’t have been slow enough to have a buzzer go off until he heard the scraping of metal on pavement. If you have flaps inop, dropping the gear is a great way to slow that plane down even if you were a little hot, there’s even a table for how to calculate landing distance with no flaps. It’s sad really, from what it sounds like the pilot (who I believe owned the plane) took a minor abnormal procedure and turned it into a totaled plane.
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If this info is accurate, than the saying, “an accident waiting to happen” may apply. It would be quite the lack of airmanship and judgment to go over the threshold at 160kts in that airplane even without flaps. I can picture a pilot along for the ride thinking, ‘something doesn’t seem quite right’, until interrupted by the metal scraping noise. Or, something more sinister like it being done intentionally.

As far as turning a minor abnormal into something much greater, that’s one of those things that goes away with good training and more experience. Unless it turns into a bad mistake early in your flying career that…doesn’t allow you to get good training and more experience.
 
Always remember “it” can happen to you. I almost landed gear up in a Cessna 210. The gear horn failed and I got distracted by traffic in the pattern ahead of me. Someone, I am forever grateful, said “gear” and I put the gear down at 500’. Another time in a 727 simulator I couldn’t figure out why the plane wouldn’t slow down on an ILS. When I went to landing flaps the horn blared and the instructor laughed and said he doubted I would ever make that mistake again, he was correct!
 
Tantalum said:
there are probably a set of lights, either green or red, that indicate gear position, as well as a very large handle - this is aided likely by a checklist, typically printed on laminated paper, some sort of card stock, or plastic

In all seriousness. People don't forget flaps, they don't forget to turn the yoke and push and pull on it, they don't forget to put their pants on.
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People do forget flaps. Sometimes ATPs in airliners. It usually makes the news.
 
You could fly an older Mooney or Bellanca where you know your gear are down because your right arm is a little tired.
 
Yes, it can happen to anyone. However, my thoughts when posting earlier is that if you are doing a no-flap landing with procedures (and checklists) spelled out, it should be avoided.

Fortunately lots of pilots have been saved from gear-up by the horn, or ATC, or some other helpful bystander. Others, not so.
 
Kenny Phillips said:
People do forget flaps. Sometimes ATPs in airliners. It usually makes the news.
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That happened in several episodes of Air Disasters. No slats-and-flaps at takeoff.

For example, in 1987 at Detroit, a DC9. Taxi checklist not done, aural alert didn’t sound, stalled after takeoff, 156 died.

I haven’t flown any small piston-engine planes that have aural alerts for flap position at takeoff. Luckily the runways were long enough for me
 
I was at Travis AFB when this happened in 1983. So says it was an Instructor Pilot in the left seat and a Standards Evaluation pilot in the right seat. Took a while to clear the runway…

9CCEC219-93CA-4FC3-B51C-E92E6A28B141.jpeg
 
Okay.. so one (maybe two if we count the military jet above) occurrences of accident causing poor configurations in big planes, and both examples are decades-old

Everyone can make a mistake, but we ought to hold ourselves to a better standard versus the 'it can happen to anyone' resignation

I will continue to severely admonish those who make this mistake, and should I ever do so myself I'll likely give up flying
 
In 18000+ hours I've never even come close to forgetting to put it down, but I'll never say that it can't happen to me. Based on many accident reports that I've read over the past 50 years, I've seen that highly experienced military, airline, and corporate pilots have failed to do so. Given factors such as a strong headwind requiring more power, a distraction such as a serious emergency, a near miss, multiple seemingly unrelated warning and cautions, fatigue, etc. I'm convinced that it can happen to any of us if we fly long enough.
 
I wonder if modern headsets contribute to ignoring (not hearing) an aural warning.
 
I’ve heard that argument before and have had to debate the negative effects of ANR with someone that claimed they would be a safety issue. Easiest way to find out is for the pilots to test out the theory in their own plane. Unfortunately, not everyone will want to do that.
 
That’s so far off profile for that airplane that the gear seems like a minor omission in the bigger picture… unless he was on fire or mid stroke, I can’t explain this one.
 
Like I said, he apparently had an issue with flaps inop, and to me, it sounds like a massive helmet fire. There is an abnormal flaps procedure in the manual, and (don’t quote me on the exact speed) you can drop the gear at some crazy speed, I think over 275kts to slow down. Between those and speed brakes that are standard, he should have been able to land easily on that runway (7k+ feet). Even factoring 1.75x for typical landing distance, 4K’ is easily attainable.
 
Nick Pilotte said:
My dad is an airport bum at that airport now. What seems to have happened (according to witnesses) was the flaps didn’t go down, and when the pilot landed they crossed the numbers somewhere around 160kts (and ADSB data showed last hit pretty close to 30’ AGL at that speed). So in my limited right seat experience in a 510 (great plane by the way), he probably wouldn’t have been slow enough to have a buzzer go off until he heard the scraping of metal on pavement. If you have flaps inop, dropping the gear is a great way to slow that plane down even if you were a little hot, there’s even a table for how to calculate landing distance with no flaps. It’s sad really, from what it sounds like the pilot (who I believe owned the plane) took a minor abnormal procedure and turned it into a totaled plane.
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It’s a good thing he had the gear up or he could have run off the end and been hurt!
 
DoubleD said:
I wonder if modern headsets contribute to ignoring (not hearing) an aural warning.
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TrueCourse said:
I’ve heard that argument before and have had to debate the negative effects of ANR with someone that claimed they would be a safety issue. Easiest way to find out is for the pilots to test out the theory in their own plane. Unfortunately, not everyone will want to do that.
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That’s what guys were saying about “modern” headsets 40 years ago. Being deaf allows you to hear stuff better. ;)
 
MauleSkinner said:
That’s what guys were saying about “modern” headsets 40 years ago. Being deaf allows you to hear stuff better. ;)
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40 years ago?? I had a rental checkout 15 years ago with a crusty ex-military instructor who wouldn’t allow the use of headsets and insisted on the handheld mic and crappy overhead speaker, because “this generation of pilots wouldn’t know how to handle the plane and communicate if their headset quit working.”
 
midlifeflyer said:
I once has a case where that happened - during the complex training!

The potential for and history of that happening is a reason many preach (1) no touch & goes with retracts and (2) don't change anything until clear of the runway.
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I had a real gear incident. The gear failed to lock and produce a green light in a Cessna 210. I circled around, talked to people, did fly bys, but nothing would produce the green light. In the end, I landed, and the nose wheel collapsed. It was very short ground roll. I opened the door and walked out, totally shaken, but no injury. I had to call my wife to pick me up, and it was a few tense minutes trying to explain to her that I was in a "plane crash".

After that incident, I am very paranoid about the landing gear. Everyone I fly with puts the gear down and lands, and don't give it a second thought. My heart always skips a beat during the flare, even if I had double and triple checked the gear. Now I know what PTSD is like.
 
ElPaso Pilot said:
40 years ago?? I had a rental checkout 15 years ago with a crusty ex-military instructor who wouldn’t allow the use of headsets and insisted on the handheld mic and crappy overhead speaker, because “this generation of pilots wouldn’t know how to handle the plane and communicate if their headset quit working.”
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Most of the people I flew with back then refused to wear them because you “couldn’t hear the airplane”.
 
ElPaso Pilot said:
40 years ago?? I had a rental checkout 15 years ago with a crusty ex-military instructor who wouldn’t allow the use of headsets and insisted on the handheld mic and crappy overhead speaker, because “this generation of pilots wouldn’t know how to handle the plane and communicate if their headset quit working.”
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From what I have seen the ex-military instructor is right.
 
MauleSkinner said:
That’s what guys were saying about “modern” headsets 40 years ago. Being deaf allows you to hear stuff better. ;)
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The latest version of that is to leave ANR off at least until after the runup or you won't hear if there's a problem. There's always a mythical danger to something new.
 
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