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

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lsaway

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lsaway
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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We had a guy gear up an MU-2 here. Fortunately, the props don't hit when you do that.
 
Why should that retractible be different than any other in that regard?

I saw an in cockpit YouTube some years ago with warnings blaring LOUDLY as they approached and landed gear up. I do my very best to check for a green light multiple times before short final, but it could still happen to me while the gear horn is loudly blaring. I don’t think it ever will, but it could.
 
My flight instructor told a student that if she advanced the throttle slightly that annoying beeping would stop. Even then she didn't get the hint.
 
I make my passengers check if the gear is down on their side. The ones I fly with commonly will let me know its down before I even ask. I check the light and the actual gear a minimum of two times. Once when I initially drop the gear before the FAF or in downwind and again final.
 
lsaway said:
What warning system does this airplane have
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I mean.. how about a freaking checklist and the plane NOT HANDLING LIKE IT SHOULD

holy hell people are stupid.
 
lsaway said:
What warning system does this airplane have to prevent this error and aid the single pilot?
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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.
 
There is a Youtube out there of a cockpit view of a Trinidad landing with two people in the cockpit, with the gear up warning horn blaring, all the way down to when the plane hit the runway.
 
I asked an instructor to monitor me while I tried to do a gear up landing. (Obviously not to the bitter end).

it was fun trying to make my birdie slow down (it wouldn’t) and listen to the annoying beeping. It felt all wrong and I wanted to know that feeling first-hand.

It was so out-of-sorts that I hope to recognize the issues and not make the mistake in real life
 
lsaway said:
What warning system does this airplane have to prevent this error and aid the single pilot?
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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.
 
Rgbeard said:
I asked an instructor to monitor me while I tried to do a gear up landing. (Obviously not to the bitter end).

it was fun trying to make my birdie slow down (it wouldn’t) and listen to the annoying beeping. It felt all wrong and I wanted to know that feeling first-hand.

It was so out-of-sorts that I hope to recognize the issues and not make the mistake in real life
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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?
 
I have been flying retracts for 40 years. Most planes I have flown have a gear warning. If the pilot lands too fast or with too much power, the horn may not blow. A sudden distraction can also throw a pilot off his game.
 
A better question might be how did the early Arrow pilots manage to do it. They literally had to disable the automatic gear extension system to land gear up. They managed somehow. To be fair, I've perfected my selective hearing over 20 years of marriage. I could easily ignore a loud and obnoxious sound for a great period of time.
 
Pilot claims he was doing a flaps up landing (which doesn’t make a ton of sense) and the horn didn’t sound…. But he either tried to land at over 130 KIAS or he ignored/inhibited the horn also. It is very weird. Although I will say that during training, you hear that horn a lot and it’s pretty easy to develop the muscle memory to reflexively reach for the horn-silence button when you hear it.
426369F7-CF23-4EF8-8B2A-8D9B8831C88E.jpeg
 
I'm not familiar with the C510, but have some experience with aircraft in that price range. They have a transducer in the pitot line that kicks in when the airspeed falls to a specified limit. It activates the Master Caution Light and a light on the Caution, Warning and Advisory panel. It also sounds a horn. The horn can be silenced by pressing the Master Caution Light. There have been times when a pilot "punches off" the horn and went on to finish what ever he was doing, resulting in a gear up landing.

I have always instructed pilots that I fly with to silence the horn by first putting the gear handle in "Down" because there may be another issue that causes a Master Caution warning. Several gear up incidents that pilots that I know did a last minute go around and just silenced that annoying horn without further action. I know of three times this happened to pilots more experienced then I.
 
RudyP said:
Pilot claims he was doing a flaps up landing (which doesn’t make a ton of sense) and the horn didn’t sound…. But he either tried to land at over 130 KIAS or he ignored/inhibited the horn also. It is very weird. Although I will say that during training, you hear that horn a lot and it’s pretty easy to develop the muscle memory to reflexively reach for the horn-silence button when you hear it.
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Inhibiting the gear horn becomes a natural action without conscious thought for a lot of people.
 
Add a few things like it is the end of your 5th day in a row of flying 8 hours per day. It is getting dark, you are hungry, you got to pee, and you were just found out the crew car is not available.

then it is no wonder most accidents happen during landing which is probably the most challenging thing we normally do during a flight.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
Maxnr said:
have always instructed pilots that I fly with to silence the horn by first putting the gear handle in "Down" because there may be another issue that
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I like that. My version when doing complex training is telling the pilot that if I even heard the stall warning during normal ops, I would not sign the endorsement.
 
Tantalum said:
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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Now you're making me feel bad, but in my defense I've been working from home for two years. Pants are no longer a checklist item.
 
Rgbeard said:
I asked an instructor to monitor me while I tried to do a gear up landing. (Obviously not to the bitter end).

it was fun trying to make my birdie slow down (it wouldn’t) and listen to the annoying beeping. It felt all wrong and I wanted to know that feeling first-hand.

It was so out-of-sorts that I hope to recognize the issues and not make the mistake in real life
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I like it! You just gave me a task for the weekend, thanks!
 
If you think this will never happen to you......might not be a bad time for some brief introspection & consideration of normal human weakness - and the fact that you. too. are....human!

Keep up your diligence. Make a study of past issues and preventive measures. Listen to those who have done it or come close to it. Use every tool you can.

Two of my good buddies - with thousands of hours, and plenty of serious flying, have done it.
 
lsaway said:
What warning system does this airplane have to prevent this error and aid the single pilot?
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It makes a loud scraping sound if you forget.

Statistically, a long straight in final is what gets most people. They hold off on reconfiguring the plane until they're "closer"
 
Sac Arrow said:
There is a Youtube out there of a cockpit view of a Trinidad landing with two people in the cockpit, with the gear up warning horn blaring, all the way down to when the plane hit the runway.
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That video has been played and replayed for years. I've never seen any comment about the obvious, that the pilot was well aware the gear wasn't down because of a mechanical issue. The pilot and passenger don't seem surprised, and engage in conversation after the aircraft grinds to a stop.

Unfortunately, I don't know what they're saying, because my knowledge of French consists of approximately fifty words, and none of those are related to landing gear.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
thousands of hours
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Let'sgoflying! said:
Keep up your diligence
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^ yes! That's exactly it. We are human, but that's why developed checkpoints and procedures to not let our humanity get the better of us. As a note, I always felt that 'hours' were a poor metric for competence. Experience is invaluable, but with hours also comes complacency, boredom, shortcuts. Each run up gets shorter and shorter until at some point you're barely even cycling the mags while you taxi out.. and BOOM, that's when you attempt a takeoff with a control lock in place. So to your point, it's keeping up that diligence and pretending that every day you get in the cockpit is your first day as a newly minted pilot. Use that experience to your advantage, and don't let it become a siren song of eventual demise
 
Maxnr said:
I'm not familiar with the C510, but have some experience with aircraft in that price range. They have a transducer in the pitot line that kicks in when the airspeed falls to a specified limit. It activates the Master Caution Light and a light on the Caution, Warning and Advisory panel. It also sounds a horn. The horn can be silenced by pressing the Master Caution Light. There have been times when a pilot "punches off" the horn and went on to finish what ever he was doing, resulting in a gear up landing.

I have always instructed pilots that I fly with to silence the horn by first putting the gear handle in "Down" because there may be another issue that causes a Master Caution warning. Several gear up incidents that pilots that I know did a last minute go around and just silenced that annoying horn without further action. I know of three times this happened to pilots more experienced then I.
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Our Ultra gear airspeed switch is 150K. In the 15 years we have operated it we have had around 3 switches fail to where it gives no warning. There is no warning if you do not go to full flaps and you have silenced the air speed warning, if it is working. Gear up landings have happened on more than one no flap training landing in Citations. I agree with putting the gear down early on a no flap landing!
 
A few years ago, a pilot landed gear up at a controlled field near here. The tower
called the plane several times to warn the gear was not down. The pilot said he could not hear the tower because there was a loud horn blaring inside the airplane.
 
Tantalum said:
holy hell people are stupid.
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Good procedures and discipline are the antidotes for stupid, so the more you practice those the less like you are to catch it.

But sometimes it is just your day to be the stupid one.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
Maxnr said:
I'm not familiar with the C510, but have some experience with aircraft in that price range. They have a transducer in the pitot line that kicks in when the airspeed falls to a specified limit. It activates the Master Caution Light and a light on the Caution, Warning and Advisory panel. It also sounds a horn. The horn can be silenced by pressing the Master Caution Light. There have been times when a pilot "punches off" the horn and went on to finish what ever he was doing, resulting in a gear up landing.

I have always instructed pilots that I fly with to silence the horn by first putting the gear handle in "Down" because there may be another issue that causes a Master Caution warning. Several gear up incidents that pilots that I know did a last minute go around and just silenced that annoying horn without further action. I know of three times this happened to pilots more experienced then I.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Tantalum said:
In all seriousness. People don't forget flaps...
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Sure they do.They also forget boost pump, cowl flaps, mixture, seatbelts, windows, locking doors, and changing frequencies.

Paraphrasing, i think it was Rod Machado who once said that the only differences between a gear up landing and talking on the wrong frequency are the consequences.

We hear about gear ups because they tend to shut down runways. Forgetting your pants only gets laughs on the ramp.
 
Landing gear up is much easier than you think. It rarely happens on nice days where everything is just fine. I remember listening to a podcast where a twin pilot told how he did it. He had some engine problems and was looking at an engine closely. He was vectored in front of a transport size aircraft and knew he had to keep his speed up. Focusing on the engine and the other aircraft saturated him enough that he just did not pay attention to the final phases of flight. I think he had another crew member on board too, so they both missed it. Like all accidents, it's not often just one thing. It's a series of often little things that add up in a way to mask the overall picture.

The people who say "I'll never do that" or "How can anyone do that" are the ones who scare me. It can happen to any one of us.
 
midlifeflyer said:
consequences
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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...'


LesGawlik said:
Landing gear up is much easier than you think.
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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

LesGawlik said:
I'll never do that
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-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..?

LesGawlik said:
How can anyone do that
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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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