Bad day for Mooney’s on Spruce Creek

[carusoam]

Summary of some interesting ideas...

• GU landings happen to well trained pilots with a high level of experience and recency.
• Happens in old planeswith buzzers and new planes with tones.
• Distractions are a significant cognitive challenge that are known to cause an interruption in the normal cockpit procedures.
• relying on a feeling of normal can be easily abetted by making adjustments elsewhere.
• GU landings can be expensive including totaling the plane.
• EGPWS Systems can be of help.
• Statistics and insurance companies are tightly related?
• we have several ways of being reminded preemptively to put the gear down and check the gear down....
• we have only one way of being reminded the gear isn’t down, and this method isn’t working very well...
• Some pilots have offered their experience with the P2 and @piloto offered a similar device with voiced messages...

It seems to me...

• Ordinary Pilots Using the ordinary gear-up buzzers and tones are still not recognizing what the tone is saying.
• An actual voice annunciation may be the solution.
• Wouldn’t my insurance company want me to have one of these devices?
• How would we get statistics that support having a P2 or other device?

The brain is a wonderful device. It changes with exercise, age, O2 level, blood flow, caffeine and other stimulants, amount of rest, food, morning or afternoon...  it provides enough background noise of its own... hiding a distraction, by feeling normal, is what it is good at.  

See if we can focus on what isn’t working, and what we can do about it...

PP thoughts only, not a CFI...

Best regards,

-a-

[steingar]

I've posted this before, but I really feel it bears repeating.  Humans are by nature distractible.  If we weren't there never would have been such things as pickpockets and stage magicians.  If you really feel you could never gear up and airplane I promise you I could distract you into doing it.  And I don't hold a patch on the average 4 year old (though Mrs. Steingar thinks I have the maturity of one).

[MyNameIsNobody]

3 hours ago, co2bruce said:

All I was saying if your flying by the numbers you should feel something off. If anything happens on final (like the long list of doors popping, babies puking, dogs freaking) GO AROUND! I know it can happen to anyone, but if it happens to you it is your fault. I do 3 GUMPS one approaching the airport, one on downwind, and one more after turning final. It may happen to me one day, but I try to do everything in my power to avoid it. 

 I am not trying to divert “blame” or accountability, although affixing it upon the pilot in command seems to be a “big deal” for you.  I am trying to get beyond blame and accountability to contributing factors and ultimately mitigation.  Good Grief.

Edited March 12, 2018 by MyNameIsNobody

[MIm20c]

It would be nice if the Garmin 660 could be programmed to call out “check gear” at 500 or 300 agl like it currently does for 500 agl.  Would be one more good reason to spring for it this summer. 

[aviatoreb]

8 minutes ago, MIm20c said:

It would be nice if the Garmin 660 could be programmed to call out “check gear” at 500 or 300 agl like it currently does for 500 agl.  Would be one more good reason to spring for it this summer. 

I had the P2audio system installed some years ago that tells me about my gear in English.

[xcrmckenna]

There is a possibility some of the gear up crashes were intentional.

If airline pilots can stall an airliner with automated audio alarms, yoke and seat shakers. I don’t think anyone should assume something in the cockpit can’t happen to them. If there is a magic bullet out there that can keep pilots from making mistakes. Pilots will prove there is an antidote.

If@PTK has never made a mistake in the cockpit then I believe he will never have the opportunity for a gear up.

If you want to say during your landing you should be sitting up and on the ball. Well I would say there shouldn’t be a time while you are flying that you shouldn’t be sitting up paying attention, in control and flying the plane. Not just on landings.

Gear up landings will continue to happen. You’re right there isn’t an excuse for most of them. But to say it can’t happen to you is a bad way to look at it.

I hope it never happens to me, but I’m well aware it can.


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[Deb]

27 minutes ago, MIm20c said:

It would be nice if the Garmin 660 could be programmed to call out “check gear” at 500 or 300 agl like it currently does for 500 agl.  Would be one more good reason to spring for it this summer. 

@compilotrc has written an app called AltitudeAlert which does just that and more. Here’s a review from ipadpilotnews: https://ipadpilotnews.com/2017/12/never-miss-altitude-assignment-altitudealert-app/.

(Disclosure: We are beta testers for the app.)

[rpcc]

The last question on that site mentions an apple watch app - now that might really help

[PTK]

27 minutes ago, xcrmckenna said:

There is a possibility some of the gear up crashes were intentional...

...Gear up landings will continue to happen. You’re right there isn’t an excuse for most of them.  But to say it can’t happen to you is a bad way to look at it...

Intentional?! You think someone would bend the airplane or worse intentionally? Why?

I don't think anyone is suggesting it can't happen to them. I certainly am not suggesting that. What I'm suggesting is that there's no good excuse. Distractions are not a good excuse. To me lowering the gear goes hand in hand with slowing down. If someone is distracted enough to forget the gear they are so disconnected from what the airplane is doing and certainly forgetting other things as well. 

[ShuRugal]

On 3/10/2018 at 4:38 PM, Raptor05121 said:

 

Good example of why the yoke should be buried in your gut taking off of soft surfaces...

[Yooper Rocketman]

Great to see a real interest in this thread and lots of conversation.  I firmly believe this discussion may have already changed some cockpit procedures and some gear up landings.  That said , please be open to the possibility this was NOT pilot error.  I, nor anyone else contributing to this thread, have verified it WAS ACTUALLY PILOT ERROR.  

My purpose for posting was to hopefully remind everyone ( including self) that we are one minor mistake or oversight from the same ugly and embarrassing outcome.  

Tom

[xcrmckenna]

Intentional?! You think someone would bend the airplane or worse intentionally? Why?
I don't think anyone is suggesting it can't happen to them. I certainly am not suggesting that. What I'm suggesting is that there's no good excuse. Distractions are not a good excuse. To me lowering the gear goes hand in hand with slowing down. If someone is distracted enough to forget the gear they are so disconnected from what the airplane is doing and certainly forgetting other things as well. 

Yes I do think there is the possibility people have landed gear up intentionally. Insurance for number one. Do you think someone hasn’t burned their house down for the same reason? A gear up landing in a Mooney can be a non event thought for someone that thinks they have no better financial out. Maybe they found their engine is making metal or know their wife is going to get it in a divorce.

And yes, I think you are also suggesting it can and never will happen to you barring a mechanical failure. But I have no doubt there are far better pilots than the both of us put together that have made mistakes that bent metal in that way.


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[Marauder]

3 minutes ago, xcrmckenna said:

Yes I do think there is the possibility people have landed gear up intentionally. Insurance for number one. Do you think someone hasn’t burned their house down for the same reason? A gear up landing in a Mooney can be a non event thought for someone that thinks they have no better financial out. Maybe they found their engine is making metal or know their wife is going to get it in a divorce.
 

Yeah, I think some of these shenanigans happen. There was one where it was suggested that an owner of a twin who couldn't sell the plane in a year, did just that. 

[PTK]

39 minutes ago, xcrmckenna said:

Yes I do think there is the possibility people have landed gear up intentionally. Insurance for number one. Do you think someone hasn’t burned their house down for the same reason? A gear up landing in a Mooney can be a non event thought for someone that thinks they have no better financial out...

I suppose they could. But that’s insurance fraud and doesn’t sit well with the underwriters. Insurance companies are not stupid. They aggresively investigate and those convicted do some serious time. As they should.

[gsxrpilot]

The one time a gear up in my plane will be intentional is if I'm incapacitated and my wife is landing the plane. She's not a pilot and would need to be talked down. We've talked through the scenario and she would most definitely land gear up regardless of what anyone in the tower told her to do. There's less chance of bouncing and losing directional control and without any brakes on the right side, we're unlikely to go off the end of the runway. 

I'm a bit of a contrarian here as I prefer short or even no checklist. For landing there is only one thing that is required, and that is the gear. Everything else is "based on conditions". I check the gear at least three times and verify the glass in the floor each time. After putting the gear down and verifying that its good, I tell myself, "no matter what else happens, I won't gear up the plane today".

[Marauder]

7 minutes ago, PTK said:

I suppose they could. But that’s insurance fraud and doesn’t sit well with the insurance underwriters. Insurance companies are not stupid. They aggresively investigate and those convicted do some serious time. As they should.

How do you determine if it is fraud? Unless the knucklehead went around telling people, how do you determine it was intentional. It is not like a OSHA medical claim for a back injury and you find the guy out lifting weights.

[flyboy0681]

Users of Garmin Pilot can setup "Alerts" based upon parameters such as distance from a waypoint.  I use this feature to setup an Alert to "CHECK GUMPS" when passing over the FAF if flying IFR, or two miles from the destination airport. When I get to the designated spot the message that I entered pops up.

It's a great feature, HOWEVER, it does not save the alert and has to be entered for every flight.

[xcrmckenna]

I suppose they could. But that’s insurance fraud and doesn’t sit well with the insurance underwriters. Insurance companies are not stupid. They aggresively investigate and those convicted do some serious time. As they should.

Please tell me how you could tell if someone gear upped their plane on purpose? Insurance fraud is committed every day. People break the law everyday. So I don’t think there is much value in that theory.


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[PTK]

2 hours ago, xcrmckenna said:

Please tell me how you could tell if someone gear upped their plane on purpose? Insurance fraud is committed every day. People break the law everyday. So I don’t think there is much value in that theory.


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I couldn't tell but I can assure you fraud examiners and investigators can. See Theodore R. Wright III and Andrea Reed.

But the bigger question is: what self respecting individual, pilot and aircraft owner would intentionally crash their plane for a few dollars? How unethical is that? Even if some do manage to get away with it what have they really accomplished? Managing to shaft the rest of their fellow pilots and owners with higher premiums?

 

[xcrmckenna]

I couldn't tell but I can assure you fraud examiners and investigators can. See Theodore R. Wright III and Andrea Reed.
But the bigger question is: what self respecting individual, pilot and aircraft owner would intentionally crash their plane for a few dollars? How unethical is that? Even of some do manage to get away with it what have they accomplished?
 

Peter you are completely right that is unethical and they should be ashamed of themselves. But that doesn’t mean people don’t still do it. And I already gave you multiple reasons why people would do it.


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[PTK]

11 hours ago, xcrmckenna said:

Please tell me how you could tell if someone gear upped their plane on purpose? Insurance fraud is committed every day. People break the law everyday. So I don’t think there is much value in that theory.


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So we can reasonably conclude then that this gear up epidemic is to a high degree intentional and not due to “distractions in the cockpit.” Unless of course the prospect of an upcoming engine ovehaul is a major distraction which can make someone “forget” the gear!

Thank you for proving my point. There are legitimate distractions which can make a pilot forget to put the gear down. But no where near to these levels we are seeing.

[xcrmckenna]

So we can conclude then that this gear up epidemic is to a high degree intentional and not due to “distractions in the cockpit.” Unless of course the prospect of an upcoming engine ovehaul is a major distraction! 

I don’t know where you got that from. I said I’m sure there are gear up landings that are intentional. If you want to assume I mean it’s a high degree of incidences that’s fine.


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[steingar]

12 hours ago, gsxrpilot said:

The one time a gear up in my plane will be intentional is if I'm incapacitated and my wife is landing the plane.

Yeah, I know where you're coming from.  I doubt Mrs. Steingar could do the bar.  I wish I could get her to do some sort of pinch hitter class,  just in case, but I don't see it in the cards.  Thankfully I'm pretty healthy, and seem to be in reasonably good shape (round is a shape, right?).

[Marauder]

Yeah, I know where you're coming from.  I doubt Mrs. Steingar could do the bar.  I wish I could get her to do some sort of pinch hitter class,  just in case, but I don't see it in the cards.  Thankfully I'm pretty healthy, and seem to be in reasonably good shape (round is a shape, right?).

Jolie ran a pinch hitter program. Might have been called “Right Seat Ready” or something like that. Unfortunately for us east coasters, I don’t think she runs them this side of the Mississippi.


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[bradp]

Can also set up ForeFlight to do a “500” alert and with that a call and response.  “check gear down”. Would also recommend looking at the floor on the first gear check and keeping head outside the cockpit on subsequent (green light) check(s). 

Peter - it’s about individual responsibility and also providing an environment including technology that promotes safety.  It’s not an either or.  You’re in healthcare... when you have a root cause analysis what do you do? Chide the individual or look for opportunities for improving the safety environment by multiple modalities including policies/procedure and technology tools/advances?