Bad day for a B1 Crew

[Billy Joe Bob]

OUCH! >.0

[Debonair]

Originally posted by RAIDER14
yeah if the plane cost $285,000,000.00 why wasn't the controller watching it?

teh intarnets porno industry is worth $12,000,000,000.00
u cant watch both at the same times
which would u pic?

[B@tfinkV]

LMAO debonair






most obviously here, wouldnt the pilot notice that the runways was getting awefully close and he still couldnt hear the wheels touching??


something smell fishy to me, and its not just debonair's boxer shorts.

[Habu]

I am sure the tower at Diego Garcia is not exactly the busiest in the world.

[rpm]

Originally posted by Habu
I am sure the tower at Diego Garcia is not exactly the busiest in the world.

Werd.

Somebody would have been eyeballing a B-1 out of sheer boredom.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by cav58d
I disagree...Sure, the ultimate responsibility of the aircraft is in the hands of the PIC, but in VFR conditions (which was the case for the accident), I believe the controller does have the responsibility of making visual identification of an aircraft at one point or another in the pattern.  At least in my experience, but this would be a better question for one of our ATC guys in here

Cav, Military might be a little different, but in Civilian aviation, it just doesn't work that way.  They may be expected to have a look and see that it is the right type of aircraft they have cleared, but no the position of the gear, or surfaces.

The tower might notice it, but it is not on their 'to-do' list, and they have done nothing wrong by missing it.

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Mini D
I've spent a few years in military control towers and tend to disagree. Someone always grabbed a pair of binoculars and checked for the landing light on the plane during aproach. Always.

I am willing to believe that military procedure is different from civil.  Military planes are no-doubt more likely to come in with some kind of damage.

[red26]

Just asking, But ok I will go with the pilot not putting the gear down ok, But once the pilot noticed the nose of the bomber going to far down couldnt they push the throtle and get back off the runway? I could understand a B-52 being too Hvy but the B-1 has a afterburner on it. So could the pilots do that? Push the throttle to afterburner that is???

RED:aok

[sluggish]

I tend to agree with the people that say the warning system wouldn't allow this.  Anyone that's use FS9 knows that if you lower flaps and prep for landing without putting the gear down all kinds of bells and whistles go off.

As far as the pilot reccognizing  that the gear was up and pouring on power,  this plane would be nose up just above stall speed.  The tail of the plane would have been on the runway before he knew what was going on.  Also jet engines have a 2 -5 second lag between adding throttle and increased power.  Once he realized what was going on it was too late.

[Airscrew]

a little more info on the "mishap"

http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Unlisted.db&command=viewone&id=41

http://www.murdoconline.net/archives/004158.html

Investigators concluded the cause of the mishap was both pilots' failure to lower the landing gear during the aircraft's approach and landing. Contributing factors for the pilots' failure to lower the landing gear were the co-pilot's task oversaturation; the co-pilot's urgency to complete a long mission; both pilots' inattention to instrument readings and the descent/before landing checklist, and the co-pilot's false belief the pilot had lowered the landing gear.

According to the report, the pilot unexpectedly turned over aircraft control to the co-pilot on the final approach. The pilot reported to the air traffic control tower that the landing gear was down despite the fact that the descent/before landing checklist was never completed and the landing gear was never lowered. The red warning light in the gear handle, indicating all landing gear was not down and locked, was illuminated for more than four minutes during the approach.

Additionally, at the time the aircraft landed, the three green position lights, which illuminate after the landing gear has locked in the down position, were not illuminated.

[VOR]

Originally posted by cav58d
I disagree...Sure, the ultimate responsibility of the aircraft is in the hands of the PIC, but in VFR conditions (which was the case for the accident), I believe the controller does have the responsibility of making visual identification of an aircraft at one point or another in the pattern.  At least in my experience, but this would be a better question for one of our ATC guys in here

"Wind xxx at xx, check wheels down, cleared to land." The words "check wheels down" are a required part of every landing clearance, even if the aircraft has no retracts OR no wheels!

It's not a requirement on the controller's part to visually check, but of course it's good form to do so when the workload permits. A controller is required in VFR conditions to see the aircraft and to scan the length of the runway for obstructions. If the controller cannot see the aircraft for whatever reason, the phrase "not in sight" is required prior to issuing the landing clearance. It's to satisfy a deconfliction requirement, not to fly the plane for the pilot.

When controlling AF aircraft, it's noteworthy that in my experience they've always thrown in either "3 green" or "down and locked" when acknowledging the clearance. If I didn't hear something to that effect, it woulda raised a little red flag.

[VOR]

Forgot to add the obvious:

In the event of an aircraft in distress declaring an emergency, my eyes will always be on the bird as long as I can physically see it. If this accident took place in daylight under VFR conditions (don't have time to look right now), the local tower controller OR the shift supervisor OR any other schmuck that happened to be standing up there at the time should have noticed the gear being up. My 2 cents.

[Chairboy]

The folks here that can't imagine how this is possible and are talking about it being 'fishy' should know something: Gear up landings happen all the time despite warning systems, because sometimes people don't follow checklists.

I know folks who will go out and practice stalls, and when they pull back the throttle and their airspeed drops past a certain point, it becomes second nature to reach out and silence the warning horn.  The people with warning systems that land gear up usually report that they didn't remember hearing the gear warning, and a bunch of those are probably because they instinctively reached out and flipped the switch without thinkign about what the sound was trying to tell them.

What's unusual here is that it happened with two crew instead of a single pilot.  This is a failure of cockpit resource management, nothing else.  The 11 hour flight that preceeded the landing probably didn't help, but that's what checklists are for.  People who go through the motions or skip checklists are the ones who get into this type of trouble.  

Now start your timers, I'm sure Golfer will be in here soon to do some more "rofling' at me having the temereity to talk about "his" subject along with more jabs at my ultralight thing from 6 months ago.

Some of the more pessimistic people in the canard community say that there are two types of people flying retracts.  Those who have had a gear up landing, and those who will.  The nose gear on the LongEZ and Cozy is retractable, and there's a handful of people who landed on the mains, then commented on how they watched the nose go down...  and down,....  and keep going down.  Apparently, landing a LongEZ on its nose is an effective way to make the first turnout, it stops it pretty quickly.    

You know how to tell when you've made a gear up landing?  It takes full throttle to taxi.

[Ball]

Never appreciated what a beautiful aeroplane the B1-B is, stunning.

[Golfer]

Originally posted by VOR
"Wind xxx at xx, check wheels down, cleared to land." The words "check wheels down" are a required part of every landing clearance, even if the aircraft has no retracts OR no wheels!

Glad you said that VOR.  I kept reading posts...more posts...more posts...nada...nothing.  Check Wheels Down you'll hear at every military airport.  I remember how big and bad I felt flying into Rickenbacker in a 172.  I won't repeat the jokes that everyone says about welding.

Every now and then you'll have a tower operator have a freudian slip you might say and throw out a CWD when they're busy or just bored.

It's NOT a controllers job to check your landing gear, runway alignment or even that your engines are on.

Chairboy,

I've done my job.  You'll think twice next time it happens and you'll be here breathing "tomorrow" whenever that day is.