According to the pilot, after receiving clearance to land at the airport in Clearwater, Florida, he completed the before landing checklist. He added that, during the touchdown, the Beech B55’s landing gear collapsed.
According to photographs provided by the airport authority, the airplane came to rest on its belly with the right main and nose landing gears collapsed and the left main landing gear partially extended.
Post-accident examination of the landing gear system revealed that the outer sidewall of each main landing gear tire exhibited scuff marks and that the main landing gear door was scraped.
Further examination revealed that both of the main landing gear extension rods were bent at the assembly actuator and that the nose landing gear extension/retraction rod was fractured.
This evidence is consistent with a landing attempt with the landing gear in transit rather than fully extended as reported by the pilot.
The recorded weather at the time of the accident indicated that thunderstorms existed near the airport, and photographs taken shortly after the accident show thunderstorms at the airport.
Therefore, it is possible that the pilot was distracted by the approaching thunderstorm, which led to his completing the before landing checklist too late during the approach for the landing gear to fully extend before landing.
Probable cause: The pilot’s delayed completion of the before landing checklist, including the extension of the landing gear, during an approaching thunderstorm, which resulted in a landing with the landing gear in transit and the subsequent collapse of the landing gear.
NTSB Identification: ERA15LA249
This June 2015 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 choice is simple. Either you land on the undercarriage or you land on the belly or fuselage and incur some serious personal risk to say nothing of damage to the airplane. No excuse for departing the 180 or the FAF without having the landing gear either in transit or down and locked. It should be automatic irrespective of any distractions which in this case seemed a bit flaky at best blaming a thunderstorm in the area. The only time landing gear extension can be justified as delayed from the aforesaid schedule is when making an engine out emergency landing.
I’m reminded of Eastern Airlines Flight 401, a L-1011 Tri-Star involved in a nighttime accident in the Florida Everglades December 1972? Classic case of an internal distraction whence the entire 3 man Flight Deck crew was focused on removing and replacing a 50 cent lightbulb in the nose gear indicator in preparation for landing at Miami after having aborted the first attempted landing due to an unsafe nose gear indication. All 3 were so focused on the indication that a perfectly good airplane with its gear fully extended and locked down was allowed to slowly descend into the everglades not realizing that the autopilot had been disengaged from altitude hold when the Captain who was not the flying pilot inadvertently leaned forward and pressed against the yoke just enough to cause the AP to disengage setting up a slow imperceptible descent over the darkened everglades until too late. The crash and its aftermath became the stuff of books and films.
How much time does it take to land a B-55 Baron from the downwind leg to landing? The pilot should have had all his prelanding requirements completed while still on the downwind leg, so all that is left to do is maybe a little trim and land the aircraft. You don’t wait till you are on short final to lower the gear !!!
This pilot, regardless of how long it takes to lower the gear, did not fully complete the landing checklist, part of this checklist is to verify three green. GUMPS as we all know is used multiple times during the landing, checking the Undercarraige means checking for three green lights, this could not have happened based on what has found.
Another preventable GA accident. You can’t fix stupid,
Task overload? Approaching thunder storms + following a pre-landing checklist started too late in the approach + who-knows-what-else would compress time available and increase potential for a mishap. There really are times to “slow down to go fast”, and this landing gear mishap appears to meet all the diagnostics for one of ‘those’ times.
I’m not faulting this pilot. But I am using this as a training point for others who don’t want to get into this situation.
Different aircraft take different amounts of time to go from up and locked to down and locked. One plane I flew, a Cessna, takes about 14 seconds to swing the main gear into place before it will lock (more airspeed, more time). The Piper I am part owner of, has ’em down and locked in under 10 seconds (sometimes as fast as 7 seconds, actually depends on airspeed!!).
This is why one must check for 3 green lights (assuming tricycle gear).
And if one is running with lights on in the day, it may be impossible to tell if one has 3 Green without turning off the nav lights (in my plane Nav lights on causes the gear lights to be so dim in day conditions…).
I’ve had to “pause” more than one visual approach to quickly kill the nav lights to check for green lights. But better than closing a runway.
A B55 landing gear motor is not as fast as new Beech landing gear motors. Further, if the gear maintenance has been delayed and the gear is out of rig and lubrication the gear cycle times will be longer.
The Beech Bonanza and Baron use push-pull rods attached to the motor housing. The gear is down when the landing gear locks down, all struts at same time.