** The landing gear handle in Melmoth 2 is
centered except when the gear is in transit
— so it gives no clue of the gear's current
position.**
Key Takeaways:
The author recounts a gear-up landing and a decades-later near-miss, highlighting how pilot mindsets, misinterpretation of warnings, and disrupted routines contribute to critical errors.
A key insight from the near-miss was the author's unconscious failure to correctly interpret an analog gear-position indicator, mistakenly checking for "cycle completeness" rather than actual "gear down" status.
To address this human fallibility, the author implemented multiple safety enhancements, including a color-coded gear indicator, an accessible checklist, and an external nosewheel view.
The article concludes by reflecting on the persistent challenge of preventing future, unforeseen human errors, not just repeating past ones.
Peter Garrison taught himself to use a slide rule and tin snips, built an airplane in his backyard, and flew it to Japan. He began contributing to FLYING in 1968, and he continues to share his columns, ""Technicalities"" and ""Aftermath,"" with FLYING readers.
