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A precautionary tale

This is a precautionary tale told to me by a friend about an occurrence which happened to a pilot I also know. This was relayed to me by my friend who is very close to the other pilot so the info passed is second hand but I believe it’s credible.

The pilot in question usually flies a Seneca (ME-IR) and was due for revalidation; as his plane was AOG he chartered a different twin plus instructor to be put through his paces. Now, said pilot is usually methodical and flies by checklist – BUMPFFAILDH on downwind, for example but the instructor he was flying with – well, let’s say you know the type, old school, been there, done that, decided that checklists as my friend flies them are superfluous and tells him ‘do that then, do this later’ etc – please note this is, at the moment, info heard from 3rd hand but other pilots who’ve flown with the instructor said ‘yeah, I can believe that’.

Either way, they did air work, did one touch and go and then attempted a landing without flaps – I think maybe you can guess where this is going….. Long and short – they come in to land, wheels up and smack it on the runway. As the plane settles, the instructor shouts ‘My plane’, slams the throttles forward, wrestles the aircraft airborne, however one engine has suffered severe damage in the ground strike and the plane is barely flying in ground effect. The instructor decides to set flaps – I don’t know whether full or just first stage – but the drag is sufficient to cause the plane to descend into trees beyond a busy motorway. The outcome – our pilot has 3 broken vertebrae, cuts, gashes. The instructor wasn’t so fortunate and broke both arms, legs and pelvis.

Asked about the situation, the pilot said that he didn’t hear the gear warning because with a landing without flaps you have sufficient power to stop the gear horn from sounding. Worse, in his training, he would set gear on downwind and check on base but his instructor said no, you should check (and call 3 green) on final. Unfortunately neither of them checked because the pilot was so used to having set gear on downwind and then checked on base, he didn’t check on final.

Asked why the instructor tried to go around, he doesn’t know. He assumes that the instructor was trying to clear the runway and maybe had seen the video of the twin land gear up and salvaged something by going around (if you haven’t seen the video, here it is:)



What learning would you take from this? To follow your own checklists, regardless of what the instructor says? After all, the interference of the instructor into his routine checks (apparently) made the pilot confused causing this mayhem. My suggestion would be to modify his checklist such that gear down (3 green) is checked and called on final but how would you handle such a check flight?

Last Edited by Steve6443 at 26 Sep 15:51
EDL*, Germany

I wouldn’t like an instructor imposing his own style, unless he convinced me with arguments that his method was better. And unless he found my method unsafe I don’t see why he should impose his.

My Head of Training regards MEP training as possibly the most dangerous form of training for an instructor, and the historical accident rate still bears this out – decades after introducing Vsse you still get VMC related stall/spin accidents.

It is very good practice to put gear down on downwind in a complex aircraft as this will help you not overtake training aircraft, which might ruin your day. I used to brief reds-blues-greens on both base and final, but ensuring its called out on final is also OK. Not sure why the gear warning didn’t sound on a flap less approach as you typically need less power.

Some twins will struggle asymmetric with gear down on downwind, so you might delay this to base, but this wasn’t the case here.

Instructors shouldn’t impose a style but should train to good airmanship and practical test standard.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

I will probably eat these words one day when I land gear up…

But I honestly don’t know how you can slow down to pattern speeds without taking out gear on faster twins. The Aerostar was so slippery you couldn’t get to 100-120kts without doing that. If you pulled back throttles to where the gear horn would go off (normally around 15" of MP), you couldn’t get there without having it all hang out.

Last Edited by AdamFrisch at 26 Sep 16:42

I will never understand why amateurs always think they are smarter than those stupid professionals who can’t remember a thing and therefore pull out their paper checklist at specific moments during a flight. And with every high-performance and complex aircraft I have flown so far, wherever I trained (Germany, UK, United States) and wherever I flew, during a visual pattern the gear was lowered when turning base.

EDDS - Stuttgart

what_next wrote:

I will never understand why amateurs always think they are smarter than those stupid professionals who can’t remember a thing and therefore pull out their paper checklist at specific moments during a flight.

I suspect it’s not so much about amateurs vs. professionals as about military vs. civilian. This is quite typical for ex-military and ex-airline instructors, respectively.

LKBU (near Prague), Czech Republic

Most zero to hero schools in the UK and US will brief gear down abeam the approach end of the runway on a downwind leg for a visual approach, or earlier, for obvious airmanship reasons. Easily verified by checking their training manuals. A Seminole/DA42/Seneca is rumbling along at KIAS 120-130 clean and low cruise power – effectively a 25-40 knot closing speed on the circuit traffic.

Some schools brief R-B-G on base, some on final.

Will check what the RAF does with their King Airs on ME training in the circuit, but I really doubt they brief run and break.

It would be interesting to see Lufthansa practice on their Barons in Arizona.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Steve6443 wrote:

This is a precautionary tale told to me by a friend about an occurrence which happened to a pilot I also know. This was relayed to me by my friend who is very close to the other pilot so the info passed is second hand but I believe it’s credible.

With all due respect, “you believe” it’s credible, because you “know someone who’s heard it from someone who was close to someone close to the pilot”. Or something like that. Yet, you decide to spin the story in a certain direction ? With all due respect, I find that quite presumptuous. You are referring to the accident in Marl last week, aren’t you ? Why don’t you just stay out of it and wait until we know more from the BFU; you will have time enough to disseminate all kinds of stories and anecdotes in that matter.

Safe landings !
EDLN, Germany

I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere where it has not been standard practise to put the gear down on downwind when flying a normal circuit. It was certainly what we did when I had access to a club Bonanza and Arrow, it’s what we do in retract gear gliders, and it’s what we did when I did my multiengine rating at a small flight school in Houston.

Out of paranoia I would check for three greens on base and on final, and usually again on short final :-) (Or that the handle is in the right place on a glider).

Andreas IOM

As I recall, when doing ILS practices at Benson, they would ask you to confirm downwind / (gear?) checks complete when on “downwind”.

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