There have been crashes caused by people doing a flyby for gear inspection. They have a perceived problem and are understandably at a heightened state, then they are flying lower than they are used to combined with slower than they are used to added to closer to buildings than they are used to ending with a being closer to the worms than they are used to.
The tower should be able to see if the gear is up or down from the downwind and certainly from a reasonable height flown down the centreline (they should have binoculars). If it's down, they cannot tell if it's locked so it should be treated as unlocked as mentioned above.
Getting back to the thread, I used to think that I was as prepared as I could be but recent experience has shown different (see thread about pre-flight checks). I practice stalls and PFLs regularly but really landing with the prop stopped brought home the differences between the real thing and practice with the engine ticking over.