The pilot of the retractable landing gear-equipped Cessna 172 reported that, during approach to the airport in Atlanta, he noticed he was a little high, so he reduced power to idle and heard an alert horn.
He quickly scanned the engine gauges and observed that the manifold pressure gauge was “pegged at the bottom with no indication.” He considered performing a go-around, but decided to land and assess the situation on the ground. The pilot landed the airplane with the landing gear retracted.
The pilot added that he did not see the landing gear position light because his iPad sitting on the yoke blocked his view.
He added that leading up to the approach and landing, the flight was fast paced, and he felt rushed, which attributed to him assuming he was in his “typical” fixed landing gear airplane.
The airplane sustained substantial damage to the fuselage.
The pilot reported that there were no preaccident mechanical failures or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to extend the landing gear before landing. Contributing to the accident were the pilot’s inability to see the landing gear position light because his iPad was blocking his view of it and his feeling of being rushed during the approach and landing.
This February 2019 accident report is provided by the National Transportation Safety Board. Published as an educational tool, it is intended to help pilots learn from the misfortunes of others.
The panel instruments are PRIMARY the tablet is secondary. If the tablet blocks the view of any instrumentation, you can’t put it there. And this pilot, I hope, has learned this lesson. However, this has been an expensive lesson.
Next, this pilot had a complex endorsement but did not know the sound of the gear horn, nor apparently had it been pointed out that below a certain map with the gear not down that the gear horn will come on. So during slow flight maneuvers, one should get the gear horn while practicing power off stalls at a minimum. Slow flight with gear up should also trigger the gear horn.
Further, at the point this pilot thought about going around, if they had put the gear handle in the extend position, I don’t think that they would have had enough time to get locked, so that was definitely a TOGA point. As I recall, Cessna gear takes about 14 seconds to go from retracted to down and locked. At 200 AGL or less, I don’t think the C172RG will have the gear down and locked unless one is fast and floats.
GUMPS is right, plus a little system knowledge would have told him the only warning horn (at least in the Cutlass II I flew) was for the gear not down and locked plus the engine in idle. It was interesting to read he only damaged the bottom of the plane and not the prop/engine also. One picture include in NTSB report showing only scraped sheet metal on bottom of aircraft with possible clue of engine damage (?) in upper left of photo by small debris/oil on panel.
The iPad didn’t obstruct the view…the CLOWN that put it there blocked it. Worse? The gear doesn’t deploy itself…that’s right…the pilot failed that task too. This is why retractables in GA aircraft are an insurance nightmare…thanks to guys like this with his incompetence and excuses.
No… it was the iPad’s fault. This pilot needs to sue Apple and win a multi-million dollar verdict. That way he can hire a “professional” crew to power a larger, faster twin turbo-prop from the proceeds of his lawsuit. Problem resolved. : > ))
Hmmmm…clearly “poor instruction” by the CFI who did his complex training….
Next.
I just finished reading this story and was about to,post essentially the same thing. Not my fault, it was Cessna’s for putting those lights where I wanted my iPad mounted or sue Apple for making it too big causing it to block the gear lights. In today’s sue happy culture, that will probably happen. Of course we will all pay in increased aircraft costs as the manufacture’s premiums go us and ours do too.
You’re spot on Richard. I remember long ago the infamous case of Piper versus Cleveland. That was the beginning of the end of reasonably priced general aviation aircraft. Years later, the General Aviation Revitalization Act was brought about. We’re thankful –but like you say, we pay the price of people who continually make poor decisions that collectively hurt our community at large.
GUMPS……….no matter if you are in fixed or retract aircraft. It is something you definitely learn to say when learning to fly a retract aircraft, and it sticks with you from then on.
I asked my very first CFI why I had to say, “gear down” when the 172 didn’t have retractable gear, and he told me someday I might fly such a plane and it would be second nature to have that check. That was 13 years ago and I’ve yet to fly a retractable but I still use the GUMPS. Actually he taught me to use GUMPSL.