Gear-Up Landings: There Are Pilots Who Have and Those Who May Have To

Landing an airplane with the gear not securely down and locked is a dreadful experience, but pilots and passengers are rarely injured.

Martha Lunken

Monday, January 22, 2024 at 12:15 PM ET

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It's a little-known fact that Icarus, the human son of the Greek god Daedalus, crashed when his retracted legs got glued in the sticky wax mess he created when he soared to close to the sun, and he couldn't get his gear down. [iStock]

Key Takeaways:

Gear-up landings are a surprisingly common aviation mishap, frequently stemming from pilot forgetfulness despite claims of mechanical or electrical failure.
Pilots often resort to excuses or repositioning gear switches post-incident, rarely admitting to simply forgetting, which the author attributes largely to ego.
Though rarely causing injury to occupants, gear-up landings lead to significant and costly damage to aircraft components, impacting the plane and the pilot's pride.

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Most people think that Icarus, human son of the Greek god Daedalus, crashed because wax that coated and formed his feathered wings melted when he soared too close to the sun. But, actually, his retracted legs got glued in the sticky mess, and he couldn’t get his gear down. Thus, the first of many gear-up arrivals.

I was a kid hanging out in the old Lunken Airport control tower the first time I saw one…and it was pretty spectacular. It was the mid-’60s, and a derelict B-25 was heading for the airport with a cabin full of reptiles. Really! Some “wild kingdom” exhibition opening downtown was evidently in financial distress and badly needed to attract a good, paying audience.