During a youth demonstration flight, the pilot became distracted looking for another airplane in the traffic pattern at the airport in Abingdon, Virginia, and sharing information with the young passengers.
He subsequently forgot to lower the Cessna 182’s landing gear, and the airplane landed gear up, resulting in substantial damage to the fuselage.
The pilot reported that there were no pre-accident anomalies or malfunctions with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation and added that he heard no cockpit warnings since he was wearing a noise-cancelling headset.
Probable Cause: The pilot’s failure to lower the airplane’s landing gear prior to landing, which resulted in abnormal runway contact.
To download the final report. Click here. This will trigger a PDF download to your device.
This February 2024 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.
Lesson for me: extra extraneous, talking causes distractions— at least for me, big time if I’m not careful. Driving a car too. “Hands free” cell phone use by me anyway is very distracting.
But now, he is going to have to replace the destroyed belly antennae
“Another one trying to land without wheels! You can teach monkeys to fly better than that!”
He didn’t have his head in the game.
A very insightful report – not..!!
So the pilot lands gear-up, and the probable cause is “The pilot’s failure to lower the airplane’s landing gear…”..!!!
That’s patently NOT the cause, that’s the effect. The cause is distraction.
How much do the authorities spend compiling these useless reports, and what are we supposed to learn from them..??
We’re supposed to learn to put the gear down before landing! Duh!
Teaching kids how to ignore checklists!
Bet that impressed the kids!