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Go around after contacting pavement with gear up?
- Thread starter FN FAL
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Long Time Gone
Never Did The Atkins
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2003
- Posts
- 1,012
Once upon a time.................
There was an instructor (E.C.) at the former ATA (Airline Training Academy) at Orlando Executive Airport who knew everything and argued with all about everything. We (Chief Instructors) tried for a while to find a reason to can him, and he finally gave it to us.
On a dark, clear, Saturday night, he was in the pattern practicing night landings on rwy 07 with his student in an Aztec. During one approach, they forgot to lower the gear. As the props hit the pavement, the instructor initiated a go-around. They made left closed traffic, passed over the Fashion Square Mall (which was highly populated on Saturday nights with kids, parents, and such), turned left base over downtown Orlando (near the Sun Trust building, right on top of the then popular Church Street Station), and landed "without incident" in his words. They taxied the aircraft back to the ramp area, and parked the Aztec in it's appropriate spot like nothing happened.
As daylight came and the next business day began, it was enlightening. Both props had both tips bent backwards 90 degrees for at least the first 6 to 8 inches. The step on the right side was still there, but snapped out of it's mount so it freely swung back and forth. The ADF antenna (dome) was gone, the DME antenna, as well as the tail tie-down mount. Both engine cowlings had scrapes on the bottom.
He stated to us that he NEVER touched the ground, except for the props, and one of his "buddies" (F.G-P.) at the school also argued with us of the same, even though the "buddy" wasn't even at the school when it happened. He felt that it was in his best interest to go around and save the aircraft. He stated that the aircraft handled "perfectly normal", and had no clue that he even hit the pavement with the props (this was said even after we started up the engines and the whole aircraft wanted to shake itself apart). He never once thought about the highly populated areas of the Home Depot on the upwind, the intersection of Colonial Drive and State Hwy 436, the Mall, Church Street Station and all of the downtown bars, the neighborhood on final, etc. After that statement and the ensuing arguments, we finally had the correct opportunity to rid ourselves of him. The firing had nothing to do with the gear-up; it had all to do with the decision making process that he's lucky didn't totally fail on him (i.e. slamming into a mall on a Saturday night with upwards of 1,000 people in it, etc.), and the ensuing arguments. There were other gear-ups there; in fact, it seemed like the plague for a while. Two of the other gear-ups kept their jobs, simply because of admitted guilt and correct decision making.
Long story short, pull the mixture(s) and plant the thing on the ground. You already screwed up the engines by prop-striking them. They now HAVE to be overhauled or replaced, regardless. This latest accident is a prime example of what could happen. Luckily, in ORL, it didn't and numerous lives were spared.
There was an instructor (E.C.) at the former ATA (Airline Training Academy) at Orlando Executive Airport who knew everything and argued with all about everything. We (Chief Instructors) tried for a while to find a reason to can him, and he finally gave it to us.
On a dark, clear, Saturday night, he was in the pattern practicing night landings on rwy 07 with his student in an Aztec. During one approach, they forgot to lower the gear. As the props hit the pavement, the instructor initiated a go-around. They made left closed traffic, passed over the Fashion Square Mall (which was highly populated on Saturday nights with kids, parents, and such), turned left base over downtown Orlando (near the Sun Trust building, right on top of the then popular Church Street Station), and landed "without incident" in his words. They taxied the aircraft back to the ramp area, and parked the Aztec in it's appropriate spot like nothing happened.
As daylight came and the next business day began, it was enlightening. Both props had both tips bent backwards 90 degrees for at least the first 6 to 8 inches. The step on the right side was still there, but snapped out of it's mount so it freely swung back and forth. The ADF antenna (dome) was gone, the DME antenna, as well as the tail tie-down mount. Both engine cowlings had scrapes on the bottom.
He stated to us that he NEVER touched the ground, except for the props, and one of his "buddies" (F.G-P.) at the school also argued with us of the same, even though the "buddy" wasn't even at the school when it happened. He felt that it was in his best interest to go around and save the aircraft. He stated that the aircraft handled "perfectly normal", and had no clue that he even hit the pavement with the props (this was said even after we started up the engines and the whole aircraft wanted to shake itself apart). He never once thought about the highly populated areas of the Home Depot on the upwind, the intersection of Colonial Drive and State Hwy 436, the Mall, Church Street Station and all of the downtown bars, the neighborhood on final, etc. After that statement and the ensuing arguments, we finally had the correct opportunity to rid ourselves of him. The firing had nothing to do with the gear-up; it had all to do with the decision making process that he's lucky didn't totally fail on him (i.e. slamming into a mall on a Saturday night with upwards of 1,000 people in it, etc.), and the ensuing arguments. There were other gear-ups there; in fact, it seemed like the plague for a while. Two of the other gear-ups kept their jobs, simply because of admitted guilt and correct decision making.
Long story short, pull the mixture(s) and plant the thing on the ground. You already screwed up the engines by prop-striking them. They now HAVE to be overhauled or replaced, regardless. This latest accident is a prime example of what could happen. Luckily, in ORL, it didn't and numerous lives were spared.
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DustMaker said:
Yeah, and it doesn't say anything really enlightening; He lost directional control on short final, hit a tree. inverted, then slid into a fence. He was trapped under the airplane and suffocated. His son was in the rear seat, he lived with head injuries. He was a high-time pilot (ex-military, CFI/COMM, etc.) so I don't know if it was some mistake on his part or something wrong with the airplane. (The airplane had been out of service for some time due to hail damage.)
Here's a link to the NTSB report.
(Edited)
FN FAL: The others were spotless. I should have also mentioned this was the only one I ever put a mark in.
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Well, i just learned something - double check all control linkages. - i have already made the gaps on all flight surfaces on the larger size or a tad more.
Too many planes have had the aileron jam into the wing pocket. on the canards the elevator is "captured" on the inside by the fuse and the outside by the wing tip - both gaps are 1/16 oversize, same with the ailerons and the rudders.
All nuts and bolts are torqued - every single one of them and of course all are an/ms grade.
Too many planes have had the aileron jam into the wing pocket. on the canards the elevator is "captured" on the inside by the fuse and the outside by the wing tip - both gaps are 1/16 oversize, same with the ailerons and the rudders.
All nuts and bolts are torqued - every single one of them and of course all are an/ms grade.
PC12Cowboy
Berry Beery Bad
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2003
- Posts
- 561
Vector4fun
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2003
- Posts
- 796
I saw a gear up "Touch-n-go" once. Burned the centerline paint right off the runway. Flames from the friction of the belly against all the old tire rubber trailed back 30' and over the horizontal stab. But the props never touched, and the aircraft made a normal landing later back at base with little more than some scraped belly skin and some sheepish pilots.
Oh, it was a C-130...
Oh, it was a C-130...
Many years ago a United Airlines 737 on a training flight out of Denver made a gear up touch and go at Pueblo. Story was that the gear CB had been pulled for the stall series and after the engines pods made contact with the runway the check-pilot assumed command and returned to Denver and made an uneventful landing.
happened in a UND arrow at an airport about 35 miles from GFK a couple years ago. what's really spectacular about the story is that the solo pilot, a commercial applicant, did another lap in the pattern, did a T&G with the gear down, decided the airplane was airworthy, then flew it back to GFK and landed it without telling anybody what happened.
mckpickle
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 5, 2002
- Posts
- 1,242
erj-145mech said:
There was actually a crash in an arrow that led to this being taken off the newer a/c. The plane was flying through some ice and trying to climb out of it. The "pitot" tube that was used for gear extention iced up and dropped the grear. Once the gear is down in an arrow.....well thats pretty much all she wrote!!! Seems like they could have just heated the darn thing!
SPBRIAN
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 19, 2002
- Posts
- 103
mckpickle said:
The flight school I was at had 2 arrows with the "helping hand" aka automatic gear extension and the pitot tubes on them I believe are heated. Maybe he just forgot to turn on the pitot heat, which is the same switch which activates the pitot tube for the gear on the pilots side of the A/C?
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