..I had a gear up landing - and my first declaration

Tantalum

Tantalum

Final Approach
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Feb 22, 2017
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San_Diego_Pilot
Went back and forth on posting this for a while but figured I'd share


The summary is:
I went out flying in one of our twins, not my beloved Aztec (luckily) for sightseeing with family. Everything nominal, but on approach to the pattern the left main did not come down. Flew several low passes in the pattern while cycling the gear and troubleshooting. Finally declared, attempted the manual extension, and still no luck.. I also learned the value of the Qref checklist I keep which has the emergency tabs very easily organized!

tower was great, my passengers didn't freak out. I didn't freak out. Tower was very helpful in coordinating and visually checking the plane

The whole thing was surreal, it was a beautiful day to fly, and it was weird on my last downwind leg knowing that sometime in the very near future I'd be bending metal. I've never hurt a plane, not so much as scratched one, in 20+ years of flying. So that thought sucked.

The runway is wide, winds were generally light, around 5-10 knots mostly headwind, so elected to land with the nose and right main out. These are three bladed props so left both mills running (A) because I didn't want to make my situation worse pre-emptively killing an engine, and (B) because with it being 3 blades there'd be no way to stop the engine without damaging the props

Touch down was smooth.. and I managed to keep the left wind aloft until it felt like we were virtually stopped.. I'd estimate 20-30 knots at most. The wing came down.. and the plane turned left, but managed to stop with all the but the left wingtip on the runway.

Damage was surprisingly minimal. I killed the engines on touchdown but still got some prop damage on the left engine.. otherwise no fuel leak and all said and done it didn't look too bad

The fault was mechanical, seems a pin came loose somewhere on departure causing one of the bolts to slip out on wheel retraction. Once in the well it pivoted awkwardly resulting in the gear getting physically stuck. Maintenance was able to pull it down by hand on the ground, but it took some pulling and wiggling. I'm thorough on my preflights, especially with the gear, as I never wanted to be one "those guys" who geared up.

So that's that!
 
Sounds like it all went as well as it could. A little bent metal and an engine, but par for the course and everyone walked away.
 
pics or it never happened! I personally would have kill't the engines, but no big deal, everyone's safe!
 
Sounds like you handled a less than ideal situation as best you could. Thanks for sharing!
 
While not a fun experience, it's about as good of an outcome as you can hope for given the mechanical issue...

Job well done to you and the passengers for keeping your cool (and managing to minimize the damage)!
 
Great job. Screw the engine and props. Only reason I might have shut them down is to do it from the fuel shutoff, leaving the engines running to suck as much fuel out of the lines as possible before touchdown, but all that matters is no loss of life. It's just a bonus when you can reuse the plane.

No way shutting engines down to reduce damage is even a blip on the radar for me.
 
Whoa that's no fun. Congrats on handling it.

Did you pull the mixtures as soon as the main touched? Did all the blades on the left engine get damaged?
 
Great job in handling the emergency. Did you try any G force to try and free it? I did that on my Velocity and it slammed down and locked. Broke the cable but it worked. Of course if it’s really hung no amount of G force will work. Years ago one of the F-18s at our base had a hung gear and I watched as he porpoised violently up and down to shake it free to no avail.
 
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Gear up or down on this one is a good debate I haven’t seen yet. I can see the validity of both ways. (And none of it has to do with saving the left engine)
 
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Tantalum said:
Went back and forth on posting this for a while but figured I'd share


The summary is:
I went out flying in one of our twins, not my beloved Aztec (luckily) for sightseeing with family. Everything nominal, but on approach to the pattern the left main did not come down. Flew several low passes in the pattern while cycling the gear and troubleshooting. Finally declared, attempted the manual extension, and still no luck.. I also learned the value of the Qref checklist I keep which has the emergency tabs very easily organized!

tower was great, my passengers didn't freak out. I didn't freak out. Tower was very helpful in coordinating and visually checking the plane

The whole thing was surreal, it was a beautiful day to fly, and it was weird on my last downwind leg knowing that sometime in the very near future I'd be bending metal. I've never hurt a plane, not so much as scratched one, in 20+ years of flying. So that thought sucked.

The runway is wide, winds were generally light, around 5-10 knots mostly headwind, so elected to land with the nose and right main out. These are three bladed props so left both mills running (A) because I didn't want to make my situation worse pre-emptively killing an engine, and (B) because with it being 3 blades there'd be no way to stop the engine without damaging the props

Touch down was smooth.. and I managed to keep the left wind aloft until it felt like we were virtually stopped.. I'd estimate 20-30 knots at most. The wing came down.. and the plane turned left, but managed to stop with all the but the left wingtip on the runway.

Damage was surprisingly minimal. I killed the engines on touchdown but still got some prop damage on the left engine.. otherwise no fuel leak and all said and done it didn't look too bad

The fault was mechanical, seems a pin came loose somewhere on departure causing one of the bolts to slip out on wheel retraction. Once in the well it pivoted awkwardly resulting in the gear getting physically stuck. Maintenance was able to pull it down by hand on the ground, but it took some pulling and wiggling. I'm thorough on my preflights, especially with the gear, as I never wanted to be one "those guys" who geared up.

So that's that!
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MYF? Duchess?
 
Velocity173 said:
Great job in handling the emergency. Did you try any G force to try and free it? I did that on my Velocity and it slammed down and locked.
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I had mine get stuck as well. Although it was a new tire that was slightly larger in diameter. G force got it unstuck too.

Given the amount of "pulling and wiggling" required to get Tantalum's down, I have a feeling that a couple of G's would not have got that leg down.
 
Thanks for telling the story as a reminder that sometimes bad things happen to good people. From what you have related I don't see anything you should, could, or would have done differently. All down safe with minimal damage is the best possible outcome. You did good ... :)
 
Glad you're all okay. Sounds like you did everything right.

--Matt
 
Great job! Glad to hear everyone is ok. Sorry about the aircraft, but that means nothing compared to the fact that everyone walked away. Great job.
 
I would have flown short final at 140kts+, gear lever down, engines off, bounce down the runway on the right main a couple of times hoping to shake the left main loose, fired up the engines and gone around and try it again if that didn't work. or something like that.
 
luvflyin said:
MYF? Duchess?
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Yes.. nice pretty one too with all the latest Garmin gizmos.. it was a sad day. This was a few weeks ago

donjohnston said:
I have a feeling that a couple of G's would not have got that leg down
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Had I been with another pilot I may have tried this.. left the area and done a series of steep turns. But the people with me were older family, never been in a small plane before, and didn't speak english. So I wasn't sure I wanted to start those maneuvers, and no guarantee it would have worked. The guy had to give it a pretty good tug and push the wheel back for it to come down. Interesting that you had a similar experience

WDD said:
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Funny, my friends teased me with this same video afterwards

Since @eman1200 was looking for pics. Here's the wheel just starting out before the plane was released to maintenance. Also.. maybe alone or with another pilot I would have killed the engines. The runway is long enough. Or perhaps landed totally gear up? Damage would have been far worse.. Either way it worked out

I should have raised the flaps before the wing came down. I was kicking myself for that!
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Nicely done sir!
 
Ya done good pilot, and an experienced Cirrus pilot at that!
 
Well done. You made the best of a bad situation. Keep us posted on the he damage assessment and repair process.
 
Congratulations! You made Kathryn's, lived to tell about it, and did everything right. Seriously, good job. Would not be kicking myself over the flaps in the least bit.
 
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I’ve never had a real gear up landing, just a few abnormalities.

If your gear got buggered up, and you caught it before landing, no foul on you. It’s kinda like that engine failure where you go into the soybean field, the insurance Co owns it.

Sounds like it worked out fine.
 
Pi1otguy said:
@Tantalum, can you dispel rumors. Did tower send ominous guys in suits to bury you in paperwork for saying the "e word"?
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They don't come in suits. IF he needs to do anything, he'll get a call from the FSDO asking some questions.

When I used the E-word, it was a phone call interview. I think they asked for a written statement. That was it.
 
Fearless Tower said:
When I used the E-word, it was a phone call interview. I think they asked for a written statement. That was it.
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When I declared an emergency, the guy from the airport fire department asked if everybody was ok…that’s it.

Although they probably got a thorough report from the engine shop…wish I had pictures.
 
I would think this would be classified as an accident, so he’ll have to call them.
 
Salty said:
I would think this would be classified as an accident, so he’ll have to call them.
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NTSB 830 (I don’t know why I still remember this from my student pilot days):

‘Engine failure or damage limited to an engine if only one engine fails or is damaged, bent fairings or cowling, dented skin, small punctured holes in the skin or fabric, ground damage to rotor or propeller blades, and damage to landing gear, wheels, tires, flaps, engine accessories, brakes, or wingtips are not considered “substantial damage” for the purpose of this part.’
 
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