Embraer Gear Problem Boston. more

[bomarc]

To Be covered on CNN

[rotornut]

9:30 - Gear reported down at 45 deg. angle, about to make another approach.

[nano404]

All I heard CNN Headline news say was a plane is going to attempt a landing so I came on pprune to find out whats the problem. Always ahead ;). What model? Apparently landed without incident but CNN missed it. Doh!:}

[nano404]

I saw the video on CNN i think from affiliate WCVV or similar. It went well.

[barit1]

Video (http://www.thebostonchannel.com/video/13535782/index.html) of touchdown & early part of roll

[nano404]

E135 it is.

[bnt]

boston.com says (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/city_region/breaking_news/2007/06/plane_having_tr.html): American Eagle fight from Toronto. First landing aborted at touchdown, but all well on second attempt, after asking the tower to check the gear visually.

[bomarc]

it seems the plane is down safe and fine...

some reports indicate that "crews" felt that the "flaps" that come out when the gear goes down caused the sparks.

could these be some sort of gear door?

also, if you watch the video of the landing, it does not appear that the plane uses full flaps (wing flaps) for landing.

does this plane have main gear doors, other than strut doors?

[bomarc]

a shame that the original thread was terminated.

it has come to light that the subsequent safe landing was done flaps up...and that the flaps were damaged in the first landing attempt.

I can only imagine that the gear was up on the first attempt at landing and that a thorough investigation will show something surprising.

[Zeffy]

NTSB has released a preliminary report (http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20070621X00766&key=1).


NTSB Identification: DCA07FA050


Scheduled 14 CFR Part 121: Air Carrier operation of AMERICAN EAGLE AIRLINES

Accident occurred Wednesday, June 20, 2007 in Logan, MA

Aircraft: Embraer 135, registration: N731BE
Injuries: 41 Uninjured.
This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed.




An American Eagle EMB-135, tail number N731BE, flight number 4539 initially landed with the gear up at Logan International Airport, Boston, Massachusetts. The crew reported that they had an indication that the gear was down and locked but right before touchdown, they noticed a landing gear lever disagree. They executed a go-around and mechanically lowered the landing gear. They were able to get the gear down and locked and got a visual confirmation that the gear was down. The flaps would not retract due to damage from contacting the runway on the intial landing, but the crew was able to successfully land the airplane. There were 37 passengers and 3 crew members on board. No injuries were reported. Eye witnesses to the first landing stated that they did not see the gear down on the approach.

[bomarc]

thanks zeffy for posting the NTSB report.

something was "fishy" with the information coming out at first...very interesting with huge ramifications for the embraer fleet if the gear shows down, but isn't.

embraer pilots are welcome to post their knowledge

[Capt. Horrendous]

The gear down indication on the EMB 135/145 is on the EICAS with an additional backup system on an RMU sub menu page. There is no mechanical indicator and now way to tell from the cabin if the gear is down and locked.

A landing gear disagree audio/visual warning is generated if the gear is not in the selected position 20 seconds after the gear command.

If the gear was not indicating down there would have been a mode 4 'too low gear' gpws warning below 500ft.

Additionally, a landing gear voice warning 'Landing Gear, landing Gear' is annuniciated below 1200 ft RA if land flap is selected and the gear isn't down.

It can be seen that there are plenty of warnings to prevent a gear up landing - a very strange incident indeed, and one I look forward to seing the technical reasons for.

[bomarc]

thanks captain H...

but really, no traditional three green lights? amazing

[bomarc]

folks:

go look at this picture...someone else can post it if you can. one picture is worth a thousand words.

http://media.myfoxboston.com/planelogan.html

http://media.myfoxboston.com/images/american_airlines.jpg

this shows the plane landing with all GEAR UP, it continues and takes off again (may I coin a new term, a "RUB AND GO")...it did land safely later on, but WOW!

check it out.

[averow]

Some terrific photos on the click-thru bomarc, thanks for the link. I will be eager to see the full NTSB report down the road...

[bomarc]

please folks, consider:

if this situation had happened on a day with gusty crosswinds?

I would love to hear what you all think. but dipping the wing even 3 degrees or so with gear up might have made a big mess.

[Haven't a clue]

Interestingly the picture shows the nose gear doors open.

[matt_hooks]

Wow, that's some sort of go-around!
To actualy contact the runway gear up and then execute a succesful go around, amazing!

[Dysonsphere]

I spotted that the nose gear doors are fully open wonder what happened to the Main Gear doors. Just checked the other piccy on fox and theres no sign of the gear, would be intreasting to know how the gear sequances on that airframe.

[PJ2]

There are no gear doors...it's the same as the B737.

[con-pilot]

I realize that I am referring to an entirely different aircraft, however, on the North American Sabreliner aircraft that under certain conditions that you can have a gear down and locked indication with all three gear up and locked.

I know that this has happened to a US Marine Sabre 60 and a Sabre 80 I believe.

There are two clues when this happens. One is the green gear down lights light up immediately when the gear handle is placed to the gear down position. The second of course is the absence of the noise of the gear extending.

Is it possible that the Embraer can have the same type fault?

[robbreid]

http://www.mediafire.com/?5njpnbmtudz

[bomarc]

con-pilot

I think your contribution is quite meaningful. I flew sabre 40 (great plane) and understand what you are getting at. your reference to the sound of the gear coming down would be true of any plane of this size , even up to the dc9/737 maybe even bigger.

number 1: we have a very lucky crew and passengers...an inch here or there, a few degrees of bank...and bam.

number 2: if something is wrong with the systems design of this type of plane, fine and it better get fixed pronto.

number 3: if the boys in front were fooling around, screwed up, or whatever you want to call it...I refer you to the continental dc9 in 1996 at houston gear up and stayed on the ground.


If it were not so close to tragedy, I would remind you of the ending scenes of the comedy, "airplane" in which the auto pilot (otto pilot) takes off again after a belly landing.

I couldn't get the tower audio to open up...if someone would post the transcript of the clearance to land and the go around and anything else like>>>WHAT THE @#$%^? that would be neato, not to be confused with NATO or OTAN.

[archae86]

The tower communications audio link posted by robbreid downloaded to my computer as an mp3 file, which opened normally in Sound Forge 6.0 with good intelligibility (mono, 16 kHz, 16 bit, 1minute 23.7 seconds length).
Here is my attempt at transcribing the audio posted above. Caution, I am not a pilot. I've "typed em as I heard em", without cleaning up--for example what I hear as Ray is surely Runway, and I've left in stumbles and vocal pauses.
I’ve used #### for words I fail to interpret—nothing suppressed as profanity or such.
539: #### Eagle 539 ####
Tower: Eagle 5539 Boston Tower, clear to land on Ray two-two Left. Hold short on Runway two-seven for landing traffic. The wind is two-three-zero at eight.
539: ah clear to land two-two left short at two-seven, 539.
Tower: Flight 539 say intentions.
539: hey I gotta go around, we got to check something out.
Tower: Flight 539 fly uh #### #### turn left heading one-uh-eight-zero, one-eighty on the heading maintain three thousand.
539: one-eighty three thousand, 539.
Tower: flight 539 let me know what your intentions are.
539: alright, we’ll let you know
Another flight A: American Eagle there, they have the sparks coming out.
Tower: Ah you saw that-ah too? Ah, they’re working on that, they’re not sure. They-uh went missed approach. Do you-uh?—do you know where exactly they were coming from? We were trying to get that from a MassPort vehicle.
Another flight A: It looked they were landing on two-two Left and then-uh they touched down, sparks were coming out, and then they must have gone around.
Tower: Kay, you don’t know, you couldn’t tell where the sparks were coming from though?
Another flight A: Underneath the wing area, it looked like there were no gear down.
Tower: Kay, thanks.
Another flight B: and Tower #### four-seven-five
Tower: #### four-seventy-five eh?
Another flight B: Yeah, we saw the whole thing. It was between Fox-Char Char-uh- Foxcart and Charley—and-uh yeah-uh we’ll confirm that. They’re gear was up. They’re-uh nose gear doors were open but there was no gear down at all.
Tower: Okay, thanks. I’ll pass that on.
Another flight C: Not a good day.

[bomarc]

archae86

thanks...wow

another factor was the hold short of 27...this go around could have also ended up centerpunching a plane landing on 27, especially with reduced climb from a "rub and go"


thanks again

[pigboat]

Once watched a HS-125 do a rub and go in Islip NY. The crew was bringing it in for the Garrett engine conversion and forgot to lower the gear. They touched down on the trailing edge of the flaps, continued down the runway for a couple hundred feet while the old Vipers wound up, then zoom, came around and landed normally. Ground off the trailing edges of the flaps, the belly beacon and caused a couple of red faces. :ooh:

[RobertS975]

OK, this comment is coming from a non-jet private (commercial land and sea) pilot of 30 years... I think these guys were foolish to attempt a go-around after touching the runway with what have been a most unusual and horrible noise. At that point, they could not have known what the status of their bird was, what the damage was. The fact that all came out OK was a bit of luck, no?

Now one can argue that a belly landing might have erupted into a fireball on the runway with probable deaths, and that sure could have happened had they not done the go-around.

My question for the pros: Wouldn't it take giant cojones to push the throttles forward after knowing that your fuselage/flaps or some other pieces of your airplane have scraped on the runway?

[bomarc]

I have a feeling that there were alot of unknowns on this one.

NTSB has cvr and other data recorders...crew screw up? design flaw with aircraft?

I think this one is worth watching

[742]

>>>My question for the pros: Wouldn't it take giant cojones to push the throttles forward after knowing that your fuselage/flaps or some other pieces of your airplane have scraped on the runway?<<<

It has been reported that the crew began the go-around due to float. Turbine engines are bit slow accelerating from idle, so it may well be that the crew began the go-around BEFORE there were any scraping noises.

[bomarc]

I too believe that the go around was initiated without fully realizing the gear was up and that the crew didn't make a rub and go on purpose.

[pax2908]

How easy is it to let the lack of vibration (gear down and locked, +increased aerodynamic noise) associated with the gear extended, go unnoticed? I understand things are happening quickly, but "surely" the absence of this clue will give a feeling of "something not right", even if not part of any checklist?

[barit1]

If the E135's engines are typical turbines, and the crew didn't firewall throttles until they heard a strange scraping noise, they surely wouldn't have made a successful go-around. The crew had to have a clue at 50-100 feet that not all was right with their airplane, and correctly had power coming up so they could reassess the situation. :ooh:

[Zeffy]

How easy is it to let the lack of vibration (gear down and locked, +increased aerodynamic noise) associated with the gear extended, go unnoticed?

Check the pics -- nose gear doors were open. The associated noise may have provided a "confirmation bias" in addition to the three green that the gear were down.

As bomarc says, this investigation will be worth following.

[bomarc]

in the last two jets I flew, there was a pronounced clunk or thunk as the main gear locked into place.

I still remember that one day when the second of the two thunks was about 1 second too late...

now, I've never even been a pax on an embraer jet and dont know first hand...but I have to think that a thunk (think a thunk?) would be part of the equation.

I do have to point out the DC9 at Houston (CAL) about 11 years ago that landed gear up...alot more crap going on with that one.

[flyhardmo]

This extract is from the myfoxboston comments page.
http://community.myfoxboston.com/blogs/Maria_Stephanos/2007/06/20/Pictures_Tell_the_Story2?page_no=2
"listen everybody it is rediculous how people speculate so many things before hearing the truth. Just so you guys know the problem was verified on the ground. The aircraft was brought to the hanger and gear swings were done to the aircraft and it was verified that a fault did occur in the legu. The three greens were on and the gears were not down. It is still waiting further investigation but it was not crew error it was a mechanical malfunction and to the aviation expert get a life airplanes now a days are much more advanced then the one u flew in 1950."
Very lucky, but well done to the crew. Love the way he bags news networks 'aviation expert'

[bomarc]

please tell an old pilot what a LEGU is?

I am glad to hear that this is a mechanical problem, however, as I mentioned earlier, there may be a fleet wide problem with design...I hope you post whether it is just a poor job of mx on this plane or is a fleet wide problem

[ATTCS armed]

Landing Gear Electronic Unit (as from the Embraer Manual)
Basically it is the 'magic box' that 'processes the main landing gear shock absorber signal'
Looking at the manual, it has four seperate channels and it processes the signals from the WOW and proximity switches on each main gear.
Each switch on the gear is powered from a seperate source to 'enhance redundancy'
Well done the crew BTW!

[Floppy Link]

From the manual
The Landing Gear Electronic Unit (LGEU) processes the main landing gear proximity switches' signals information in four independent channels and controls various equipment operations. Logic processing includes the position signal and its validity.
Don't ask me any more I just copied it out :}

[bomarc]

fine, just a typo then as the writer indicated LEGU and not LGEU

and for those who don't know, WOW means "weight on wheels". Back in prehistoric times we called them squat switches..

[Capt. Horrendous]

It always did smack of a technical problem, as I said earlier, without a system failure of some sort, there are just too many warnings to enable a crew to make an unintentional gear up landing on this type.

Do American Eagle use flap 22 or flap 45 as the default setting for landing ?.

[kingair9]

Do American Eagle use flap 22 or flap 45 as the default setting for landing ?.


Default or not - on the picture 1 page earlier this seems much more to be 45 instead of 22.

[ERJFO]

There was obviously a fault with the LGEU giving the crew the 3 green indication and not allowing the EGPWS to signal any warning at all. There would have been warnings at a flaps 45 selection and at 1200' on the RA if the computer didn't "think" the gear was down. The safegaurd in the system is the "LG LEVER DISAGREE" EICAS message that the crew claims they didn't realize untill it was time to go around, not realizing this seems unlikley because it is presented on the EICAS in an amber color with a audible chime.

One would think (but we don't know all the details) If the crew had followed the QRH (emergency abnormal procedures checklist) they would have not have had the incident they did. The boys at EMB have already issued letters to other operators asking them to "follow the QRH in the event of a LG LEVER DISAGREE message on the EICAS".

In response to other questions, the EMB-135/145 is noisy when the gear comes down because the nose gear doors are right under the cockpit, because those opened I imagine it would sound like the gear was functioning normally. The engine spool up time from approach thrust at 60%-68% N1 to TO/GA thrust on the 135-145 is right around 2 secconds at most. The engines are incredibly fast spooling and quite small for dual spool turbofans. A spool up from idle could take 5 secconds or so however.

After flying the EMB-135/145 family of aircraft for a while it isn't hard to imagine a computer problem like this I feel like every leg there is something wrong with the various system automation and we have a good MX department.

[bomarc]

with the gear retracted, even with nose gear door open, there would be less drag during approach

ergo

less thrust required by engines to maintain glideslope

engines near idle? longer spool up for go around

and another warning to pilots something ain't right...however a tailwind aloft might do the same.

let us all be learning something from this one

and viva less automation!

[Huck]

a tailwind aloft might do the same

A good friend was the pilot that geared-up the Eclipse in KABQ a few years ago.

He was on a downwind for a visual and was told to "keep it in tight" because of an emergency aircraft inbound.

High descent rate + power way back = abnormal power settings and sounds. Combined with some breakers pulled for flight test --- the impossible happened.....

[G-LOST]

bomarc,
Interesting point about thrust. Of course, the gear going down provides an initial punch of drag that you would expect to notice and counter with thrust, however gear and flap 22 selection usually follow in quick succession and the thrust change required with the flap could be enough to fool the senses. I have flown this aircraft for a few thousand hours, and I only look at the thrust set once or twice on the approach for confirmation, and then only once flap 45 is set. It's all done by feel and with a wary eye on the airspeed.

The thrust and pitch change when 45 is set is significant and on the day could easily have resulted in a similar power setting to the norm, especially if there was a significant headwind. Normal approach is 63% plus or minus quite a lot. This is an airplane where you cannot just set thrust and forget it. In tricky conditions, you have to work the thrust continually (no autothrust) and that combined with the concorde style yoke means that on a gusty day, the PF looks like what I describe as a (please excuse the phrase, it's not politically correct) 'spastic at the gym'.

As I see it, the only mistake here was that an EICAS message 'may' have been ignored. As someone has said, confirmation bias and complacency may be a factor.

Yesterday (my last on type) I had the comms hatch pop open in descent. That gave one hell of a thump and then resulted in significant wind noise. That hatch is only about 5 inches round, so it's reasonable to assume that the great big nose gear doors opening on their own would also be quite loud enough to trick the senses.

There were significant tech issues in the early days, but with good maintenance most of these have been ironed out. The EICAS cautions / warnings and resulting 'ding' ceased to raise the heart rate a long time ago because of the cry wolf syndrome. There were often spurious messages, many of which come and go of their own accord. Maybe this happened here? Nevertheless, it pays to check 'em all out.

For all its faults, the EMB is a great little airplane to fly. I am going to miss it!

[bomarc]

I understand what you mean.

when the gear comes down do you feel a clunk? in my dc9 the clunk was unmistakeable.

[G-LOST]

Yes there is a bit of a clunk, but it's muffled by the noise from the gear doors. Not too dramatic, although it varies from one aircraft to another. We had one that was particularly 'clunky' and felt like it was going to chuck the nosegear away from the aircraft as it locked down, but that soon got fixed... I think the point here is that it would be easy to miss these cues if the crew were particularly busy or distracted. This is a noisy aircraft to operate and there are all sorts of air conditioning pack / display fan / window seal noises that come and go on a regular basis. After a while your brain zones it all out.

[bomarc]

I understand g lost. being a tail mounted jet, I thought it would be quieter somehow.

the dc9 was so quiet in the cockpit that pilots have been known to forget to shut down the engines at the gate. so the clunk was there.

I often worry about modern pilots, in so much of a hurry to help ATC, to save minutes and fuel...that they don't have time to sense the subtle changes in a plane.

[bomarc]

************************************************************
NTSB ADVISORY
************************************************************

National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594
June 29, 2007

************************************************************

NTSB INVESTIGATING LANDING GEAR MALFUNCTION

************************************************************

Washington, D.C. - The National Transportation Safety Board
is investigating an incident in Boston that occurred on June
20, 2007, in which an American Eagle Embraer ERJ-135
regional jet briefly touched down on the runway without the
landing gear extended before initiating a go-around and
completing a second landing attempt.

None of the 37 passengers or 3 crewmembers was
injured. The aircraft sustained minor damage. The event is
being investigated as an incident.

Prior to the first landing attempt in which the gear
was not extended, the crew stated that the three landing
gear indicator lights were all green, indicating that the
gear was down and locked. Shortly before touchdown they
noticed a "landing gear lever disagree" message on a flight
computer console.

After the jet contacted the runway, a go-around
procedure was initiated. The crew extended the gear by
following the emergency abnormal landing gear procedure,
then flew by the control tower twice for a visual inspection
to ensure the gear was down prior to the second landing
attempt.

At this point in the investigation the following has
been accomplished:

In an initial test, the incident aircraft was placed
on jacks and investigators duplicated the in-flight
situation: Three green lights in the cockpit indicated the
gear was down and locked but none of the gear extended.

The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder
were sent to the Safety Board's laboratory in Washington
last week where the content of each is being evaluated.

Both members of the flight crew were interviewed this
week.

An electronic component of the landing gear control
system, made by Parker Aerospace, was bench tested this week
at their facility in New York. The same unit, with small
modifications, was then placed in a different airplane and
the indications were once again duplicated.

Embraer issued a "Field Service Letter" late last week
to all operators of the EMB-135, -140, and -145 models,
reminding pilots to follow the checklist in the case of a
"landing gear disagree" message.

The Federal Aviation Administration, Parker Aerospace,
American Eagle and Embraer are working with the Safety Board
as the investigation continues.

[brain fade]

I've got over 5,000 hrs in the Barbie.

Never seen any aircraft go round off a wheels up approach EVER.

OK, She may be piss-poor on a windy night:ooh:...........But

There's more to the Barbie-Jet than some folk think.:ok:

[Riccardo]

I've been trying to figure out why (how) this happened etc from the wiring manuals but it's got me totally foxed. There's so many indications that should have gone off, gear disagree warning and associated chimes etc and then the green down and locked box(es) should have turned red, aswell as all the others already mentioned. Very weird indeed.

I guess when Parker figure out what went wrong with the LGEU they will modify it and issue an alert SB to replace it on every plane, to ensure this never happens again.

[IcePaq]

I guess the float was the wing being close enough to the ground to multiply ground effect.

It guess they touched down lightly enough to not cause a change in pitch from the contact of the runway which would have made go around impossible.

In 1985, I saw a mooney land gear up and go around at W10 (manassas, va) and he went around to return and land.

When he landed, the prop tips had lost near equal amount of tip to the tune of 1.5 inches.

As far as control units, anything can happen with electronic control units and I have seen some really strange things happen as an engineer at standard motor products ecu division.

I'm wondering why modifications were required to test the suspect unit in another plane as that could taint the testing.

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

Perhaps its not worded well; maybe the "small modifications" were to the rest of the second aircraft, to make it similar to the first one?

Suppose the first aircraft was found to have a disabled sensor; perhaps you'd also disable that sensor on the second aircraft to check the LGEU responded to the same stimuli.

[Zeffy]

I've been trying to figure out why (how) this happened etc from the wiring manuals but it's got me totally foxed. There's so many indications that should have gone off, gear disagree warning and associated chimes etc and then the green down and locked box(es) should have turned red, as well as all the others already mentioned.


The LG/LVR DISAG message was present, but accompanied by three green boxes.

Sim instructors have mentioned that the malfunction menu for the LG/DISAG fault requires that the instructor also designate which gear will be not-down.

If Embraer and/or Parker were aware of the possibility of a "3-green + disagree" failure mode, why wasn't it included in the simulator repertoire?

Given the continuing expansion of the "CLT + ALT + DEL" culture amongst pilots and engineers, it's not particularly surprising that the CAS message wasn't given sufficient credibility.

How many times per week do pilots encounter invalid CAS messages or fault codes?

How many of these "bogus" indications are resolved by re-booting, with no action beyond that?

"Successful resets" -- wish that the term could be banned from aviation.:*

(Remember G-VATL (http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/G-VATL_Special_Bulletin1.pdf)?)

[Mad (Flt) Scientist]

Sim instructors have mentioned that the malfunction menu for the LG/DISAG fault requires that the instructor also designate which gear will be not-down.

Possibly because the aerodynamic modelling in the sim needs to know which gear is up, the ground model needs to know which gear is up, etc. Don't think you can extrapolate from the needs of inputting a failure in the sim to deduce anything about the aircraft

If Embraer and/or Parker were aware of the possibility of a "3-green + disagree" failure mode, why wasn't it included in the simulator repertoire?

I think if either the OEM or the vendor knew of this beforehand they'd have FIXED it not just dumped it in the sim. It sounds like an uncertifiable condition, probably a violation of 25.1301 and 25.1309 at the least ...


There's only so much you can uncover in a cert test programme - you're lucky if you get much over a couple of thousand hours time, max. Any decent-sized in-service fleet is racking up more than that per-day, so its not surprising we find things out in-service.

[bomarc]

I've never flown an EMB 135/145

you don't have to listen to my advice

but until this situation is fully resolved I would put the gear down 2000'AFE and make darn sure about the gear prior to the marker.

imagine another scenario...you takeoff, lose an engine and pull the gear up...it shows up but isn't...now too much drag and you can't climb well.

ouch.

HEY, didn't PARKER aero build the rudder unit on the 737?

YIKES

[Capt. Horrendous]

The LG/LEVER disagree EICAS message is a warning, not a caution, and has the higher priority audio/visual(red) message generated.

The Embraer 145 QRH, which I have in front of me now, says that if such a message is received, the gear is to be cycled. If the message persists and the gear is to be selected down, then the abnormal landing gear extension procedure is to be used.

However, the drill does suggest in the preamble that that there would be a 'landing gear abnormal indication' indicated on the EICAS. There wasn't in this case.

Like many, I've always been told to trust what the gear indicator is showing - if you've got three greens, the gear is definitely down. It's changed my way of thinking for sure.

One last point, isn't it is surprising that at a busy airport like BOS that no other pilots noticed the a/c was coming in gear up and were able to say something directly or indirectly as a way of warning the crew.

[Anotherflapoperator]

Never flown the 145, so disregard if wished, but I paxed home the other week and didn't notice the thump of gear down either. On my 146 the primary notification for me of gear down is not the three lights but the three great thumps of the gear slotting into position.

My sympathies with this crew and thank goodness the fault was hard and repeatable, else you just know they'd have had a right grilling and firing squad treatment.

As to our barbies? Just keep checking the EICAS I guess?

[Orp Tolip]

Anotherflapoperator. Never flown the 145, so disregard if wished, but I paxed home the other week and didn't notice the thump of gear down either. On my 146 the primary notification for me of gear down is not the three lights but the three great thumps of the gear slotting into position.
My sympathies with this crew and thank goodness the fault was hard and repeatable, else you just know they'd have had a right grilling and firing squad treatment.
As to our barbies? Just keep checking the EICAS I guess?
Just to re-iterate from previous posts. The EICAS 'allegedly' indicated 3 greens.
Now, I'm not ashamed to admit this but, obviously depending on the circumstances, I may well have, prior to this incident, taken that at face value and also attempted to land.
Have been repeatedly told at initial and recurrent training that 3 greens on the EICAS means the gear is down and locked REGARDLESS of any other associated messages.
My QRH also states that EICAS would show gear fault (red or hatched or both) when LG/LVR DISAG message presented. 'Allegedly' this was not the case here.
G-LOST is spot on, on the day the other cue's could be missed.

[OFBSLF]

Orp Tolip: Why the emphasis on the word "allegedly", which seems to imply that you do not believe the crew's statements, when the fault has been reproduced on the ground? In an initial test, the incident aircraft was placed on jacks and investigators duplicated the in-flight situation: Three green lights in the cockpit indicated the gear was down and locked but none of the gear extended.

[Orp Tolip]

Sorry, didn't mean to imply anything sinister, simply that until the incident has been fully investigated and we have all the facts we don't know what happened. Thats all.
As I hinted at in my post, I may well have done the same given the same set of circumstances, and not necessarily with such a positive outcome.

[Brian Abraham]

The NTSB said last week it is investigating an accident that occurred at Boston Logan International on June 20 in which an American Eagle ERJ 135 struck the runway with the gear retracted before taking off again for a go-around. According to the Safety Board, the crew stated that all three landing gear indicator lights were green before the accident. However, a “landing gear lever disagree” warning appeared on the flight computer console shortly before the aircraft struck the runway. The crew landed safely after an emergency manual gear extension. An initial investigation reproduced the indication with the aircraft on jack stands, and a test by Parker Aerospace, the maker of an electronic component of the landing gear system, found a similar unit also gave the same indication in a different aircraft. Embraer has since issued a Field Service Letter for all ERJ 135, 140 and 145 operators to remind pilots to follow the checklist in the case of a landing gear disagree message.

[Ganbare]

I've got a few thousand hours in the Jungle Jet and had a good time flying it. A tad underpowered when at Gross TOW but otherwise a neat airplane to fly. I can remember some small glitches that popped up when the airplane was initially introduced in the U.S. but nothing big....well sort of. I can still remember being cautioned about the problem with the transponder, how if you start to change the code and then don't touch the knob for more than so many seconds the transponder would switch off. That's right, no warning or a default to the last code inputted, it would just switch off. Remember the crash in Brazil of the 737 after colliding with a Legacy?

Now a possible problem with another computer, one which tells the pilots the gear is down but it really ain't. Software is a funny thing, problems sometimes don't manifest themselves for months or years and then you find a really messy problem requireing a patch or re-write. Microsoft is forever coming out with updates for every piece of software they ever released to cover the problems that were inherent when they did come out. The hidden problems with the Jungle Jet will be emerging steadily over the years to come I think. It's a shame but I think it's the truth.

The EMB Jets are cool to fly but they ain't Boeings and that's for sure. COEX bought them because they were only 12 million dollars a copy but I'm not even sure they'll last as long as the Brazilias did, they are not even that well made. But I'm glad they were able to duplicate the condition that caused the Eagle guys to go around. My hat is off to their airmanship.

[tcasblue]

I can't seem to find a final report on this incident which is surprising. Can anyone help.

[macdo]

I'
The EMB Jets are cool to fly but they ain't Boeing's and that's for sure. COEX bought them because they were only 12 million dollars a copy but I'm not even sure they'll last as long as the Brazilias did, they are not even that well made. But I'm glad they were able to duplicate the condition that caused the Eagle guys to go around. My hat is off to their airmanship.

How times have changed.

My bold