Who forgot to lower the landing gear at LGW

FWAAA

Veteran
Jan 5, 2003
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Oops. Major Oops.

From the NTSB:

NTSB Identification: DCA06WA006
Scheduled 14 CFR Part 121: Air Carrier operation of USAirways, Inc
Incident occurred Sunday, November 06, 2005 in London, United Kingdom
Aircraft: Boeing 767-200, registration: N653US
Injuries: Unavailable

On November 6, 2005, at 0745 local British time, the flight crew of a USAirways Boeing 767-200, registered in the United States as N653US,, failed to lower the landing gear until notified by the air traffic control tower to go around. The tower controller then observed the gear extend and amended his instructions to allow the aircraft to land. This is being investigated by the British Air Accidents Investigation branch as a serious incident.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=2...117X01850&key=1
 
yeah yeah, thats it...management! lol

"Yeaaaah, that's the ticket!"
cplovitzj-crop.jpg
 
Don't be too hasty here. I have flown jump seat many times over the years and observed a wide variation in crew procedures during approach.

Perhaps the Captain was waiting for the last moment for gear extention? Ever watch the space shuttle land??? If the crew was indeed surprised by the go around command from the tower, they would have punched the TOGA button. But they didn't. They simply lowered the gear and proceeded to land.

Whatever the case might be, the crew darn well knew about the gear being up with the "Landing Configuration" warning going off in their ears...not to mention the pretty red lights on the glareshield and the red LDG GEAR message on the EICAS DU.

Perhaps a bit of sensationalizing by the media with the help of a jumpy air traffic controller????
 
Don't be too hasty here. I have flown jump seat many times over the years and observed a wide variation in crew procedures during approach.

Perhaps the Captain was waiting for the last moment for gear extention? Ever watch the space shuttle land??? If the crew was indeed surprised by the go around command from the tower, they would have punched the TOGA button. But they didn't. They simply lowered the gear and proceeded to land.

Whatever the case might be, the crew darn well knew about the gear being up with the "Landing Configuration" warning going off in their ears...not to mention the pretty red lights on the glareshield and the red LDG GEAR message on the EICAS DU.

Perhaps a bit of sensationalizing by the media with the help of a jumpy air traffic controller????

All good points made here.

The bottom line will be wheteher or not the Flight Data Recorder was checked as a result of the investigation or as a normal Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) audit.

The parameters of the approach would be known and remedial action pursued if data indicated a non-standard approach profile. At USAirways the stabilized approach criteria requires the landing gear to be down by 1000'AGL.

Stabilized approaches are a very hot topic at USAirways, especially with the number of Caribbean/Latin American airports now being served.
 
Perhaps a bit of sensationalizing by the media with the help of a jumpy air traffic controller????

Sounds like the aircraft wasn't too low to the ground and thus in no immediate danger if there was time for:
1) the controller to notice the landing gear retracted and issue "go around" instructions.
2) the crew to identify the cause of the tower's instructions and subsequently extend the landing gear. (Any idea what the full extension cycle time is on a B767? 10-15 seconds perhaps?)
3) the tower controller to subsequently rescind the "go around" instruction and issue a "cleared to land."

With the plethora of landing gear warning systems and a multi-pilot crew it is virtually and statistically unlikely that an inadvertent gear-up landing will occur. Now, if they had intended to put it on its belly ...

Appears to be more press hype. :down:
 
A checkout of this aircraft's indication and warning systems revealed everything worked fine that day (in addition to an FDR read that was performed).
This was all accompliahed and documented in the aircraft records. As far as what happened that day with the actual landing procedures, that will be up to the crew and the safety department to figure out, if it has not been done already.
 
at least the tower could see them that day. some days at LGW are so foggy you don't see anything until 30 seconds before landing.
 
It's also possible that the controller flat out made a mistake and didn't see the landing gear that might have actually been down already. Are controllers' visual observations 100% accurate 100% of the time?

The controller's direction to go around likely kicked off the NTSB investigation and that's why it's in the NTSB file.
 
It's a procedural thing. Some guys put the landing gear down at 2,000 ft, 1,500 ft, or a 1,000 ft. I am guessing the latter had the UK controller in a hissy. I wouldn't worry about it. On every transatlantic hop you have on average combined between Capt, F/O and IRO 75 years flying experience in the cockpit.