Yikes, I’ve Gotta Land Gear Up

If you can't get the landing gear to extend, you've got an emergency. The good news is that a gear up landing is a low-risk event, unless you decide to do something dumb such as try to save the prop.

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You’re approaching the end of an excellent flight on a lovely day; life is good. Now, on downwind with the speed down into the gear extension range, you move the gear handle to the down position, keeping your hand on it until you get a solid gear down indication—as you’ve done scores of times.

Except. . . nothing happens. There’s no thunk as the gear doors cycle open and the uplocks disengage. There’s no deceleration as drag increases when the gear drops into the wind. Nothing changes.

You raise the gear handle; wait a few seconds and select gear down again.

Nada.

You spend a few seconds going through Kubler-Ross’s stages—denial, anger, bargaining and depression—before reaching acceptance that it’s happening to you. The gear hasn’t come down. You may be facing a gear up landing.

You add power to hold altitude and speed, turn out of traffic pattern, advise ATC of the situation if you’re at a controlled field, and head off somewhere away from traffic and obstructions where you can go through the emergency gear extension checklist.

Over the next half hour you do everything right. You hold a safe altitude and fly at a speed that gives you plenty of control while minimizing forces on the gear as it extends. You let the autopilot fly the airplane so you are freed up to think and act. You pull out the POH or Owner’s Manual and go through the procedures for extending the gear when the normal method isn’t working. You even spend some time on the radio patched through to a manufacturer’s rep to see if her specialized knowledge can rectify the problem.

Still nothing.

You’re going to have to make a gear up landing. You haven’t practiced such a thing before and you’re aware that pilots generally do very well at what they’ve practiced, but aren’t so hot when the task isn’t something they’ve practiced. So, what are you going to do?

It’s an Emergency

First, by definition, you’ve got an emergency. It even says so in the POH—dealing with a gear malfunction is in the Emergency Procedures section. So, declare the emergency so that you have all the assets of ATC available to you. Don’t be a macho moron and claim you don’t have an emergency and then screw things up because ATC can’t give you handling priority when things start to snowball as you discover you’re low on fuel because you forgot to monitor it as you worked the gear problem. Things have a tendency to snowball once the first problem happens—you want everything on your side you can get, so declare the emergency, even if it’s only on Unicom because you’re going to be landing at an non-towered airport.

Even though you’re dealing with an emergency, there’s very good news about this particular one—the data shows that a gear up landing is an incredibly low risk event. I’ve been unable to find a report of a gear up landing of a civilian airplane built since World War II in which anyone was hurt or killed—so long as the pilot didn’t shut down the engine(s) and attempt to glide in (that foolishness has killed people). That doesn’t mean that no one has been hurt or killed, I just haven’t been able to find evidence of it. Military airplanes, with their belly scoops and other interesting protuberances don’t have such a good record.

There are stories that people have been killed by TV camera trucks rushing to airports to film gear up landings, but I have not been able confirm any of them—I suspect they are not true.

Think of the inadvertent gear up landings you’ve read about, heard about or seen. They are normal landings until the noise starts—often the airplanes come to a stop on the runway centerline. I can’t find any evidence that anyone has ever been hurt in one of those events.

Even the NTSB doesn’t think gear up landings are a big deal. The NTSB regs, Part 830, contain the definition of a reportable accident and include how much damage has to be done to the aircraft to cause the event to even be considered an accident. The damage that normally occurs in a gear up landing is not enough to meet the NTSB’s definition of an accident.

If you have to make a gear up landing, the odds are that you will not even have to report it to the NTSB because it won’t do enough damage to the airplane or the people inside so long as you don’t do something dumb.

So, let’s talk about how to avoid dumb. Let’s recognize and deal with the real risks you’ll be facing, not the phantom ones.

Select the Surface

Put it on the pavement. The real risk you are facing in a gear up landing is a quick stop or loss of control after touchdown, not fire. If you hit with some vertical velocity—perhaps after stalling the airplane at 10 feet—a paved runway will translate that vector into a horizontal vector and let the airplane slide. An unpaved surface may give under the vertical vector, forming a crater, and stop the airplane quickly. An unpaved surface may also give uneven resistance to the parts of the airplane in contact with it during the slide out (or even dislodge chunks) and make it impossible for you to control the direction the airplane is sliding.

In the 1970s NASA did full scale crash tests of general aviation airplanes at its Langley facility. Two of the tests using Cessna 172s were significant in that the parameters in terms of speed and impact angle (shallow) were nearly identical except that one airplane was crashed on concrete and one on dirt. The airplane that impacted on concrete had significant damage to the forward, lower fuselage as it hit, however, the hard surface did not give so the forward and down impact vector was translated into a purely horizontal vector. The airplane slid well over 100 yards before coming to a stop. If the occupants were wearing shoulder harnesses, the crash would probably have been survivable.

The crash onto dirt was a different story. On impact, the dirt compressed, forming a shallow crater, and stopped the airplane before it traveled more than two feet. The airplane was destroyed and the deceleration loads, as well as cabin deformation, were such that the crash was not survivable.

Films of pilots performing gear up landings show that a certain percentage stall the airplane more than five feet above the ground—high enough for a significant vertical vector to develop by the time the airplane hits the ground. Because turf can compress on impact, form a crater and rapidly decelerate the airplane, the risk of getting hurt in a gear up landing is higher on a grass runway.

Minimal Fire Risk

In the category of worrying about the wrong things, post crash fire in a gear up landing has a risk that is so low in civilian airplanes that it should not even figure in the runway surface decision. The FARs require that a civilian airplane be designed to protect the occupants from fire in a gear up landing. Even in a low wing airplane, the fuel tanks and fuel lines are positioned above the bottom skins and stringers so there is crush space below them. The belly of the airplane is among the strongest portion of the structure, so the risk of doing enough damage to open up fuel tanks or lines is nearly zero. For those of you who fly bizjets, take a look at the Cessna Citation line from the Citation III on—most have skids on the belly to protect the airplane in the event of a gear up landing.

In addition, I’ve been unable to find a report of a gear up landing of a civilian airplane manufactured in the last 70 years in which there was a fire. Again, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one; I just haven’t been able to find evidence of one.

Partial Gear Extension

If you’ve got a partial gear extension—it’s either hung part way or one or more of the legs have stayed up—choosing a hard-surface runway is even more important. The gear will slide on the pavement—there’s no risk of it digging in and causing you to swerve or flip over.

In the last few years there have been a few airline landing events where the nosewheel somehow turned sideways after the gear extended. The landings were non-events. Each time, the nose tire slid, blew out and then the wheel itself slid along the runway—the pilots kept the airplanes on centerline.

Having the gear hang up in the trail position on a Cessna single or Skymaster looks scary. The good news is that the resultant landings have resulted in just sliding to a stop without hurting anyone.

Don’t Intentionally Create A Second Emergency

This section is about where worrying about, and acting on, the wrong thing has killed people.

A certain percentage of pilots, faced with the emergency of a gear up landing decide to intentionally create another emergency: they shut the engine off with the intention of stopping the prop and then using the starter to bump it to a position where it won’t be damaged in the landing. Unfortunately, intentionally creating a second emergency is one of the dumbest things a pilot can do when dealing with an existing emergency. As I said earlier, I have been unable to find a report of a gear up landing in a civilian airplane since World War II in which a person was injured or killed so long as the pilot kept the engine running at least until just before the flare. However, I’ve found several reports in which there were serious injuries and deaths when the pilot decided to try and shut down the engine(s) and glide in to landing in order to save the props. In those, the pilot either undershot or overshot the landing and hit something that stopped the airplane quickly (or simply stalled the airplane and crashed when maneuvering for landing).

Yes, an engine-out landing is an emergency.

Let’s think about the idea of shutting the engine(s) down to save the props or avoid an overhaul. First, both Lycoming and Continental consider a gear up landing, even with the prop stopped, to be a prop impact event requiring the engine be torn down and examined. Second, when is the last time you practiced a prop stopped glide to a landing in your airplane? Ever? We pilots aren’t so hot at doing stuff we haven’t practiced recently—especially when it has to be done right the first time and there’s little margin for error. On top of all that, after shutting down the engine on a lot of airplanes, you can’t stop the prop unless you stall the airplane—and not even that will do it on some. When did you last practice an engine-out stall, recovery and glide to landing?

With the odds so incredibly good on a gear up if you keep the engine running until close in, and with your responsibility to the well-being of your passengers, creating a second emergency by trying to shut down the engine and stop the prop means that you may do what you least want to do in your existence as a pilot—look stupid in the NTSB report.

Follow the POH Procedures

Once you’re committed to a gear up landing and have selected the runway, follow the POH procedures. The manufacturer put some thought into them; this isn’t a great time to be second guessing those procedures

Make sure everyone has seat belts and shoulder harnesses on and snugged up. Warn everyone to stay buckled in until the airplane comes to a full stop—trying to get out before the airplane stops is a good way to get seriously injured. The restraint system will only protect you if you’re wearing it.

Use all the flaps—you want to touch down as slowly as possible without stalling. Yes, on a low wing airplane you’re going to damage the flaps. Big deal. That’s the wrong thing to worry about—the right thing to worry about is having extra speed on touchdown. The less speed to dissipate, the less likely you are to lose control and hit something more resistant to impact than you are.

Fly a normal landing approach, recognizing that there’s going to be less drag, although that may or may not be noticeable—after all, a lot of very good pilots have forgotten to extend the gear and didn’t notice the absence of drag.

Touch down with the power at idle—you may want to pull the mixture just prior to or in the flare, your call.

Keep flying the airplane until it stops. Use the aerodynamic controls to make the airplane go where you want it to go—especially if you are dealing with a crosswind—you may be surprised at how effective they are.

Once the airplane stops, turn off the fuel, shut off the master and mags and get everyone out and away from the airplane. Then call your insurance company.

Conclusion

A gear up landing is a dramatic, but very low risk event. The airplane will be damaged. Big deal. That’s why you have insurance. If you fly a normal approach and landing the odds are huge that no people will be damaged—that’s what matters. Just don’t do something dumb like intentionally creating another emergency and put your passengers and yourself a risk.

Rick Durden is an aviation attorney who is a CFII, holds an ATP with type ratings in the Douglas DC-3 and Cessna Citation and is the author of The Thinking Pilot’s Flight Manual or, How to Survive Flying Little Airplanes and Have a Ball Doing It, Vol. I.

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