Preventing Gear-Up Landings

Ryan Motte

Wednesday, December 22, 2021 at 03:26 PM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The majority of gear-up landings are preventable pilot errors, often stemming from "forgetting" due to factors like task saturation, deviations from standard procedures, distractions, fatigue, or alarm fatigue.
Effective prevention relies on strict adherence to Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), consistent use of checklists (e.g., GUMPS), maintaining flying proficiency, and setting hard minimums for stable approaches to prevent continuation bias.
Gear-up landings are costly incidents, typically resulting in significant damage to the propeller, engine, and aircraft belly, with the financial burden usually covered by insurance.

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I have been around the airport water cooler for two different gear-up landings. The first was either a classic excuse or truly unfortunate set of circumstances. After touching the belly of the aircraft to the pavement without a nice, cushy set of wheels between the two, he hopped out of the airplane and declared that the reason he landed gear-up was due to a bee in the cockpit. I never asked if he was allergic to bees, but either way, if his story is true, that little insect caused a lot of damage.

The second story involved a pilot who evacuated his aircraft believing he selected the gear down and it must have collapsed when he landed. After the dust settled, he looked inside the cockpit and found the smoking gun; the gear handle settled in the up position.