Positive rate....gear up
 

Interesting report on Avherald about a Dash 8 400 that took off from Sydney and flew half way to Albury before they realised they'd forgotten to put the gear up. Not having flown the 400, I don't know what indications they may have had, but I would have expected it to be a bit more noisy? And no doubt the increased fuel burn must have been a concern - I wonder if that's how they picked it up, or if someone in the cabin said something?

Incident: Sunstate DH8D at Sydney on Jul 12th 2021, crew did not retract landing gear

Biggest indication would be a pair of Dunlops hanging outside the passengers' windows!

Quite amazing, and reassuring the cabin crew were also at the top of their game! [sarcasm] Or maybe in their defence they just did a sector in a BN-2 previously?! :}

no pax to see them

with all that drag maybe it came to this.

Worst case scenario is get to destination and put them up for landing .

Similar thing happened recently with a QF 787.
After take-off, gear remained down, aircraft RTB.

Disclaimer: Sorry for thread drift & sorry if mentioned elsewhere

That was due to the gear pins being left in by the ground engineer, not forgetting to raise them after T/O

Is it not the responsibility of the flight crew member doing the walk around to ensure all the gear pins have been removed?

Right, Sunstate.

Obviously no link whatsoever to the unblemished safety champions of the world?

With the stop start nature of rostering and general reduction / lack of currency, we’ll see more of this sort of stuff across the board.

So the engineer inserted the pins after the flight crew did the walk-around?
Doesn't make sense.

It happens, I investigated an A320 flight were the crew didn’t realise the Gear was still down until they got the over speed warning accelerating through 10,000 ft. Also investigated a engine out departure in the UK were the Gear was left down until the crew noticed a ‘reduced’ climb performance after acceleration. We are all capable of doing these things.

Ollie as an investigator you would have tried to ascertain the why it was left down. There are procedures and checklists that are supposed to stop this happening. It is a very basic part of two crew operation so why are two or more pilots missing the basics? It is not that different to setting an incorrect QNH then not bothering to cross check the altimeter. I can accept the COVID and recency argument for something a bit out of left field but not putting the gear up and then completing an After Take-Off checklist seems a bit of a stretch. However if COVID is having this sort of impact then the airlines need to be taking note and proactively put some non-punitive HR resources to help anyone struggling. Unfortunately the airlines and the regulators put all the onus on the individual.

It happened because they said "positive Rate", they should have said "positive Climb", then it would have all been good.

It’s happened in the Sim quite a few times ( not to the same person I’ll add !! )
In some cases not picked up until the call for gear down on approach, lots of confused looking faces and a check Captain writing lots of notes for the debrief…..

The problem here will be the SA of the crew. Anyone can take off with the gear out but the fact it took so long to realise, including doing the After Take-off checks will be the issue. I still can't fathom how you wouldn't notice the large gear lever with three green lights right in front of you. What was the FO looking at during the climb?

What would the noise be like fanging along with the gear still down?

NOT saying it’s the case in this incident; but I’m sure we’ve all flown with people who just read the checklist, expecting that the items are done, rather than checking they’ve been done.

I fly with one person in particular who does this with the after takeoff checklist. I have seen them look (and I do reckon they’ve looked at the item), but they then just literally read the checklist off. . . . . Not they way it’s meant to be done.

I hide my smile after I call “negative” to items they say they’ve done but have actually missed. And it’s more than once with this old boy!

Standard Boeing call is “positive rate”

This is what's wrong with general aviation in Australia. All the pilots flying around without a proper understanding of the performance of the aircraft they're flying, or the purpose of checklist items and how to identify if the item is satisfied.

Wouldn't happen in airline operations. All those rules and surveillance by the regulator.

At least they had enough fuel this time.
https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...r/ao-2021-002/

Checklist response, “up, no lights.” What exactly was checked before providing the response?

Checklist response, “up, no lights.” What exactly was checked before providing the response?[/QUOTE]

Mobile phone reception and facebook likes?

MCD

Gents, I hate to spoil the party, but I think you'll find its someone else's job to look at the circumstances and mitigating factors when they're presented to them. Not ours.

Look, Learn and move on. If you think it couldn't be you................

I forgot to retract the gear in a light twin. Was an early morning departure, and wasn’t feeling my sharpest. It’s amazing how strong confirmation bias can be when you’re convinced you’ve carried out the action. Tower noticed and notified approach, then notified me.

I think its easier ( and more common) than most realise to miss a task such as gear retraction. A distraction just at the right time is enough. Standard callouts / responses to checklists are all too often spoken without the appropriate confirmation.

Humans are not great at identifying errors in common tasks. We usually do better at solving unusual problems, which is why we still have a job!

wasn’t out of east mids was it?

I ferried one once back to Sydney from an outstation with the gear down. I don't recall the noise too much as we had good noise cancelling headsets, but it was fairly rough, like driving on a dirt road it just shakes a whole lot once you get a little speed up.

Thank you for that. Being pegged to Vle would have made for a somewhat longer trip I'm guessing.

It happened to me :uhoh:
The alternator tripped off and the hydraulic pump couldn't manage getting the gear up on battery. Also the alternator warning light was not working. We were wondering why the plane was so slow until we did some checking. Moving the gear handle up only managed to budge the gear just enough to have the green lights go out.

I'll put my hand up for missing it on a go around in the sim. Multiple distractions at the GA, complex GA procedure, no Positive Climb call from PM. Wondering why it wasn't climbing well once things calmed down. D'Oh..... Lesson learnt.

Yep, I did something similar a few months ago with the flap. Neither of us super current, early morning, distracted by an ATC call.
Confirmation bias convinced us both they were up with the checklist, a moment later during a moment of quiet on the radio, good look around, there they were, still at take off position. Fortunately, no overspeed, raised them up... and took things carefully from then on.

no not really ! Do you know why ?

In most airlines it's a joint responsibility between the pilot and the engineer to ensure the pins are removed before departure. However I would suggest that very few pilots would actually physically pull the pins out as this would (arguably) be a breach of an SoPs that prevent the pins being pulled by other than an engineer when they are actually required to be installed (eg. for maintenance action).

I haven't read the report closely, but I'm sure fatigue would be considered as a factor. It doesn't have to be the middle of the night to be fatigued…...

Posts 25, 27 and 31 are noteworthy, plus one or two others , otherwise I fear for the future of so called professional aviators ! Only my personal opinion of course.

Tukwilla - Thanks for that, but I did know that. I was attempting to be this thing called "humorous". (By the way it wasn't a Boeing aircraft).

“Positive rate”, so much better at rolling off the tongue than “Positive climb”. And as for “Light off” rather than “Light up”! 😡

Anyway, surely the ‘crime’ here was not checking the gear was Up in the After Take-off check, not the fact that it wasn’t initially selected Up.

My memory is that Boeing did own De Havilland for a while.
Either way , there has been an effort to standardise calls across the group.
Makes it easier when Pilots move across.

I'm obviously not worthy of being in the company of the Gods on this forum, as I too have missed putting the gear up.

It was a long time ago, so the details and systems knowledge are no longer as clear as they once were. I do remember it was the first flight of the day after a min rest overnight, with a 0630 departure. Also that it was day four or five of multi sector days. I was PM, and as the captain called for gear up I got distracted by the master warning. I had forgotten to turn off the APU after start (we usually use ground power) and the APU wasn't certified for use in flight. So I cancelled the warning and shut down the APU, forgetting all about the gear. Fortunately I picked it up in the checklist.

As for the noise, compared to those props, it was nothing. The aircraft I'm on now has you to leaving the gear down after takeoff if there is a brake deactivated. For those couple of minutes we keep the speed to around 220/230 kts because it is LOUD!

​​​​​​Mistakes happen.