The pilot was receiving a check ride from a designated pilot examiner for his single pilot rating in a turbine airplane.
After a series of maneuvers, emergencies, and landings, the examiner asked the pilot to complete a no-flap landing in the Cessna 510 to the airport in Daytona Beach, Florida.
The pilot reported he performed the before landing checklist with zero flaps and believed he put the gear down. During touch down, he felt a thump and thought the airplane had a blown tire, however when he saw the landing gear handle, it was in the up position.
He told investigators that the landing gear warning horn did not sound, because the flaps were in the up position.
The examiner confirmed the landing gear handle was in the up position.
Examination of the airplane by an FAA inspector revealed that the landing gear handle was found in the up position and the fuselage was substantially damaged. The landing gear was lowered and locked into place without issue after the airplane was lifted from the runway.
There were no mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation, according to the pllot.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to lower the landing gear before landing. Contributing to the accident was the examiner’s failure to check that the landing gear was extended.
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This February 2020 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.
Examiner pilot is at fault
He is the examiner his job is to monitor
Any unsafe action and he failed . He could have taken the control or told the pilot to go around and he failed his part
Yes pilot flying was In Simulated engine issue .
Hey they both confirmed the gear handle was up😳😂
Where was the examiner? That ticks me off that he can’t at least save the airplane. I guess he gets an attaboy for letting the guy crash his airplane.
For the aircraft involved I would think the pilot should be more aware of his configuration, warnings or not. But there’s usually a degree of nervous distraction in a check ride.
On the other hand examiners can put a pilot into a position they wouldn’t have gotten themselves into.
It takes some doing to get into a departure stall so I’m sure of the point, and at a 300′ agl emergency landing scenario I would have still been over the airport. Now 3000′ where I would have normally been changes the picture substantially.
The examiner really should be monitoring more closely, it is a check rode and he’s calling the shots for irregular actions.
Scratching my head over why the landing gear warning system would only function if the flaps were extended. If this is a maintenance issue, then that needs a separate investigation. If this is a design issue, then why was it ever approved?
But the story also shows the pilot had not developed a last chance checklist such as “gear down confirmed, flaps confirmed,…” about 1/8th mile on final.
Actually, both DPE and Pilot reported to NTSB that at the FAF gear down was selected.
“Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to lower the landing gear before landing. Contributing to the accident was the examiner’s failure to check that the landing gear was extended.”
The examiner’s failure as stated, in my opinion is quite true. This was a single pilot check out. The examiner should have noticed this and that probably should have been a check ride fail. But the selection of gear down was done and stated by both pilots separately. Looks like another rush to boiler plate.
As was said by at least one other, but I will put it differently, no less than 30 seconds out, a final gear green light check should have been done (think of fast aircraft, can’t set a fixed point before landing). Failing that: TOGA. This is something a single pilot has to do, and can’t depend on the second pilot checking them on it.
Not knowing this aircraft, it would seem to me that the gear horn should have sounded once the engines dropped below a certain power setting (or throttle position). That should have been part of the probable cause statement (this was an equipment error/fail and was part of the probable cause in my opinion).
What we don’t know (nor did the investigators according to what I read) is how the gear handle got set to the “UP” position.