What percent of Gear Up Landings are simply "I forgot"

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Joegoersch

Pre-takeoff checklist
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JoeGoersch
I just saw the aftermath of a gear up landing. Seems like pilot simply forgot to put the gear down. May have ignored gear warning horn. I've heard of cases where, despite pilot's effort, the gear could not be put down.

Does anyone know what percent of gear up landings are due to pilot forgetting to put the gear down ? (I'll include in this, cases where pilot forgot and gear warning horn did not sound although this is sort of a double failure).
 
I seriously doubt there is an accurate answer.. Speculation? Tons of that forthcoming...
 
Yes. You are probably right. I didn't realize that many gear up landings are NOT required to be reported to the NTSB. It would be interesting to know...
 
I saw a retired Delta captain practicing touch and goes in an Aztec some years back. He forgot and slid it in on the belly. Body damage was minimal but both engines had to be torn down. It can happen to anyone so we can never become complacent about it.
 
Joegoersch said:
Does anyone know what percent of gear up landings are due to pilot forgetting to put the gear down ?
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I figured almost all of them, but who would have numbers.
The ones that are not a memory lapse are usually announced on frequency, although I guess there could be some where all three collapsed on landing; pretty rare.
 
Gear failures do happen, but I think they are fairly rare, and often an excuse for a pilot making a mistake. Most of these gear systems are very simple and have very effective backup procedures.
 
On the other hand, I can think of at least three, which happened to people I know including me, that were mechanical.
 
Everskyward said:
On the other hand, I can think of at least three, which happened to people I know including me, that were mechanical.
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The plane I fly had a gear failure about 6 months ago. The shuttle valve in the hydraulic system failed, but the back up system worked as advertised.
 
bullwinkle said:
At least, that's your story and you're sticking to it! :D
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I have witnesses that we circled for two hours. :p

And witnesses in the tower who said, "It's back at a 45 degree angle."
 
I had a broken gear motor on my twin,did the manual procedure ,all was good. Did know a person who had two gear up landings,while listening to music,claimed he didn't hear the warning horn.
 
Of the three that I have witnessed, only one was beyond the pilot's control as the aircraft had experienced a mechanical failure. The other two were certainly "I forgot", but more like "I forgot that I overrode the warning systems that are designed to remind me to lower the gear".
 
I know someone who almost had a gear up. The gear horn was blaring but he thought it was the stall warning. Luckily he was with an instructor.
 
frfly172 said:
Did know a person who had two gear up landings,while listening to music,claimed he didn't hear the warning horn.
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I don't listen to music while flying, so I never thought of this. But music OFF during critical phases of flight seems like a reasonable rule.
 
Everskyward said:
I have witnesses that we circled for two hours. :p

And witnesses in the tower who said, "It's back at a 45 degree angle."
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Cessna gear has a failure mode like that.

If the hydraulic fluid leaks out, the alternate extension will also fail. You can't pump air by hand any better than you can pump it with an electrical pump.

One Cessna I rented had a "pump in use" indicator that would give early warning of a hydraulic leak, but otherwise, there is no warning but inspecting the system. And some Cessnas have a pump way back in the tailcone, that is not accessible.
 
MAKG1 said:
Cessna gear has a failure mode like that.

If the hydraulic fluid leaks out, the alternate extension will also fail. You can't pump air by hand any better than you can pump it with an electrical pump.

One Cessna I rented had a "pump in use" indicator that would give early warning of a hydraulic leak, but otherwise, there is no warning but inspecting the system. And some Cessnas have a pump way back in the tailcone, that is not accessible.
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The gear was not hydraulic. It was a twin Cessna where the push pull tube failed on the nosegear so cranking it down had no effect except to crank the gearbox.
 
drotto said:
Gear failures do happen, but I think they are fairly rare, and often an excuse for a pilot making a mistake. Most of these gear systems are very simple and have very effective backup procedures.
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Thank goodness for the backup procedures. Coming back to SJC the other day, my gear didn't go down when I moved the lever. I make it a practice to keep my hand on the knob until I see three greens and confirm out loud that there are three greens. In this case, nothing. No whirring of the motor, no clunking of the gear into place, nothing.

Slowed down and selected the emergency gear extension which removes the hydraulic pressure holding the gear up letting gravity (and the airflow in the case of the main gear) lower the gear. Glad that worked, or I'd be here reporting a +1 in the real problem column.
 
MAKG1 said:
Cessna gear has a failure mode like that.

If the hydraulic fluid leaks out, the alternate extension will also fail. You can't pump air by hand any better than you can pump it with an electrical pump.

One Cessna I rented had a "pump in use" indicator that would give early warning of a hydraulic leak, but otherwise, there is no warning but inspecting the system. And some Cessnas have a pump way back in the tailcone, that is not accessible.
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Maybe it's just the engineer in me, but I would think an electromechanical system would work better for gear. Then again, all I work on are electromechanical acutators, so I am a little biased.

 
Closest I ever got to witnessing one I was at the airport taxiing when the tower told a twin who was just about to land that their gear was not down.:eek: They immediately went around. It was a local flight school. Someone got lucky!
 
azpilot said:
Maybe it's just the engineer in me, but I would think an electromechanical system would work better for gear. Then again, all I work on are electromechanical acutators, so I am a little biased.
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Comanche is non-hydraulic, and emergency is gravity drop. I would wager it's lighter than that setup as well.
 
bikert said:
Closest I ever got to witnessing one I was at the airport taxiing when the tower told a twin who was just about to land that their gear was not down.:eek: They immediately went around. It was a local flight school. Someone got lucky!
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Closest I came to witnessing was a Lake with a stuck gear door, circling Palo Alto. Then, he called the "equipment." Several fire trucks raced onto the field. After several circles, the pilot pulled his head out of his butt and figured out he was flying an AMPHIBIAN with a big body of water right next to the airport.
 
MAKG1 said:
Closest I came to witnessing was a Lake with a stuck gear door, circling Palo Alto. Then, he called the "equipment." Several fire trucks raced onto the field. After several circles, the pilot pulled his head out of his butt and figured out he was flying an AMPHIBIAN with a big body of water right next to the airport.
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As soon as you said Lake, I was like..."Dude, water!"
 
jimhorner said:
Thank goodness for the backup procedures. Coming back to SJC the other day, my gear didn't go down when I moved the lever. I make it a practice to keep my hand on the knob until I see three greens and confirm out loud that there are three greens. In this case, nothing. No whirring of the motor, no clunking of the gear into place, nothing.

Slowed down and selected the emergency gear extension which removes the hydraulic pressure holding the gear up letting gravity (and the airflow in the case of the main gear) lower the gear. Glad that worked, or I'd be here reporting a +1 in the real problem column.
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I have heard that Piper's gear system is one of the most bullet proof. Hydraulic to keep it up, and the backup is gravity using just springs to assist final lock into place. Regardless, I have been told that get that plane down to level slow flight then trigger the release. No need to fight excess air speed. The Mooney back up extension sounds "fun" apparently you have to manually crank the gear into place, since the normal system is all electric.
 
My Questair Venture has an electric actuator as the primary system with a hydraulic pump and cylinder as a backup. It would have to be a pretty bad set of circumstances for me to not get the gear down. It's far more likely the gear would collapse once I am down than to not extend at all.
 
MAKG1 said:
Closest I came to witnessing was a Lake with a stuck gear door, circling Palo Alto. Then, he called the "equipment." Several fire trucks raced onto the field. After several circles, the pilot pulled his head out of his butt and figured out he was flying an AMPHIBIAN with a big body of water right next to the airport.
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HA!!!! What does you insurance company say when you land gear up on asphalt in an amphibious aircraft and less than a quarter mile from a large body of water. I wouldn't want to file that claim!
 
bikert said:
Closest I ever got to witnessing one I was at the airport taxiing when the tower told a twin who was just about to land that their gear was not down.:eek: They immediately went around. It was a local flight school. Someone got lucky!
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The Tower saved one at HIO a couple years ago. It was an ATP check ride. FSDO had a little chat withe DE.
 
MAKG1 said:
Closest I came to witnessing was a Lake with a stuck gear door, circling Palo Alto. Then, he called the "equipment." Several fire trucks raced onto the field. After several circles, the pilot pulled his head out of his butt and figured out he was flying an AMPHIBIAN with a big body of water right next to the airport.
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If I had a question mark by my gear position on a amphib I'd go land all day long, not sure how the lake handles a partial gear down in the water, but many amphibs can land gear up on land with nothing but some paint damage, sometimes zero damage if on grass, land gear down in water it it could be the end of not only the aircraft but you.
 
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azpilot said:
Maybe it's just the engineer in me, but I would think an electromechanical system would work better for gear. Then again, all I work on are electromechanical acutators, so I am a little biased.

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I agree, and that's why all my retractables have been Mooneys.
 
Joegoersch said:
Does anyone know what percent of gear up landings are due to pilot forgetting to put the gear down ?
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I do not have any numbers but you should not have trouble finding out.
I would suggest sorting the gear-up landing statistical data based on the emergency timing. Declared before touchdown: gear failure. Declared after touchdown: bad memory (or rare collapse). :)
 
azpilot said:
Maybe it's just the engineer in me, but I would think an electromechanical system would work better for gear. Then again, all I work on are electromechanical acutators, so I am a little biased.
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I'd agree that electro-mechanical is my preference.

That said, my time is split about evenly between planes with hydraulic gear (Piper twins) and electro-mechanical gear (Twin Cessnas/Mooneys). I've had good reliability.
 
To beat a dead horse a little more...

...any time the excuse is, "I forgot", the real culprit is lack of checklist discipline. The whole point of checklists is that humans forget stuff!
 
azpilot said:
HA!!!! What does you insurance company say when you land gear up on asphalt in an amphibious aircraft and less than a quarter mile from a large body of water. I wouldn't want to file that claim!
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If you're gear is in question, they say thanks.

Gear down in water.

Landing a floatplane (in this case with no gear) on land.




Not sure how it works with a lake, but gear up on hard surfaces is no biggie for floats/amphibs.
 
Not sure if the first one is a clip from a longer video, but there's a very sad one about a father landing gear down on water and losing his son in the process.

It was shown at a Cirrus Critical Decision Making course.
 
Can we include unintentional gear down landings on water? Two of my customers managed that; one in a Seabee and one in a 206. Both planes sank.
 
FastEddieB said:
Not sure if the first one is a clip from a longer video, but there's a very sad one about a father landing gear down on water and losing his son in the process.

It was shown at a Cirrus Critical Decision Making course.
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I watched that. Very sad.
 
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