The Rest of the Story
Please forward any comments to: don@numa.aero
The last week of July had me teaching a class in Atlanta, GA. I had flown down on Sunday in my 1981 182-RG to Peachtree Dekalb (PDK). A friend of mine (Rody) was teaching there also. His son was in a soccer tournament the following weekend in Greensboro, NC. After finishing on Friday, he was going to fly from Atlanta to Dulles to Greensboro. He would be arriving (assuming there were no delays) around 9pm. I told him that if the weather was good, I could drop him off and he could have dinner with his son Friday night rather than spend it in an airport. While it wasn’t exactly “on the way” who cares? This is why we fly, right? Besides that, it would give me an opportunity to add an entry to the flying-food.com website.
We finish up in Atlanta and head to Epps Aviation at PDK. I pick up a sectional and approach plates for North Carolina. We get a ride from the FBO to where they parked the plane. Which is a LONG way away.
Really hazy and hot the whole way up. One of those days that even though there’s not a cloud between us and the ground, calling it VMC is generous at best.
Coming into Greensboro (GSO), tower has us enter a right base for 23. I drop the gear and the first notch of flaps just before entering base. I hear the sound of the gear and flaps coming down. As I was on base I did my (first) pre-landing checklist. At which point I noticed that I did not have a green light for landing gear down and locked! I pressed the light and confirmed that the bulb was good. A look out the window confirmed the mains appeared in place. I called the tower and advised them I was going around because of a possible nose gear problem. They said I could do a low approach and they’d let me know what they saw. I explained to Rody what was going on and we flew down the runway at about 300’ AGL. Rody thought this was cool. The tower said that the nose gear looked to be fully extended and told me to enter a right downwind. I cycled the gear while on downwind but still did not get a green light. While turning base to final I was running through anything else I could try. I decided to break off the approach again and try manually pumping the gear. I told the tower what I wanted to do and they approved and said they would look again as we went by. The tower said that the nose still looked fully extended but couldn’t tell if it was locked. I cycled the gear again (still no green light) and tried pumping the gear manually. Usually, when manually extending the landing gear, it takes quite a few pumps to get the gear down and then it gets real hard to move the lever. This time, it was hard to pump on the first pump. With me and Rody watching the mains while pumping we couldn’t see any movement. At this point I’m hoping that it’s a faulty sensor switch in the nose gear.
By now I’m thinking about what John Frank and Tom Carr said a few years ago during a break in the S&P course about such a situation. (There had recently been one of those incidents where someone had “saved” an airplane by pulling a partially extended gear down from a speeding car). John just shook his head and said nobody ever dies in a gear up landing. We then talked about some of the accidents that occurred while trying to “fix” a gear problem and I was NOT going to fall into that category!
So it’s time. I’m all out of options. I’m absolutely certain the mains are down and locked. Obviously I’m speaking figuratively, but you guys that have 210’s and 182-RG’s know how those mains sound when they come down. There’s no mistaking that “thunk”.
Base to final (for the third time), the tower asks how many souls on board, how much fuel and that they’ll have the equipment ready. Sobering words. All during this I’ve been telling Rody that this isn’t a big deal. The worse that’s going to happen is we’ll bend the prop. I’m not just minimizing the situation. I’m at least 51% certain it’s a bad sensor. He’s fine… Actually looks like he’s enjoying himself!
In the Emergency Procedures section of the POH under “LANDING WITHOUT POSITIVE INDICATION OF GEAR LOCKING”.
Before landing Check – COMPLETE.
Approach – NORMAL (full flap).
Landing Gear and Gear Pump Circuit Breakers – IN.
Landing – TAIL LOW as smoothly as possible.
Braking – MINIMUM necessary.
Taxi – SLOWLY.
Engine – SHUTDOWN before inspecting gear.
I have to wonder about number 7. Do you suppose that someone has actually tried to inspect the landing gear with the engine running?
I bring it in and make what has got to be one of the smoothest landings of my life. I keep pulling back on the controls as we slow down. I keep the nose gear off for a LONG time. In fact, directional control is rather difficult and I’m weaving to the left side of the runway because I’ve still got the nose gear off and I’m really slowed down so the rudder has lost effectiveness. Then the nose comes down and stops! Now I’m faced with a dilemma: Do I stop right here and shut it down? Do I taxi off the runway and then shut it down? Do I taxi to the FBO? While I’m considering my next move, I turn gently to the right so as to not run off the side of the runway. After some distance (5 yards, 10, 15?) I lightly start braking at which point the nose drops and I hear this unusual ticking sound. The prop stops, and the plane continues for a short distance and stops. I key the mic and say something like “Greensboro tower, 6408S is down. We’re bailing out”. Mags off, power off, fuel off and I remember that I didn’t “brief” Rody on what to do should things go bad. I take my headset off, look at Rody and say “Run!”
After "exiting" the plane, I look back down the runway and see a big (757, 767?) airliner breaking off the approach and think “he’ll be circling for a little while”. The emergency trucks roll up and ask if everyone is okay. My friend looks like a tourist in New York City! He’s taking pictures of everything! J.
They give us each a bottle of water (That was the BEST water I’ve ever drank in my entire life). The head guy (Fire Chief?) gives us a ride to the FBO (Atlantic Aero) that I had planned on dropping my friend off at. My friend heads off to the main terminal to pick up his rental car.
May as well unload some stuff.
A new way of making a Q-tip propeller
Inside, I spoke to the counter person and explained the situation. She said a couple mechanics were already heading out to the plane. The manager of “Recip Aircraft Service” introduced himself and showed me around. The hangars (two big ones) were full of Citations and King Air’s. I thought to myself “this is going to be REALLY expensive”. I went back to the lobby to wait for my friend. I call my insurance agent to tell him what happened. First words out of his mouth are “Are you okay?”. He then tells me “Don’t worry about anything. This is why you have insurance. I’ll get the information and get the claim started. Make sure you save all your receipts for hotels, rental car, airfare, shipping and whatever else you have to do and we’ll see if we can get you reimbursed for that”. I love this guy! I’ve never met him, All our communications are by phone or email but he made me feel like a million bucks... This is important because of what’s walking through the door…
At this point three guys show up and one of them asks the lady at the counter if she knows who the pilot of 6408S is. I stand up and they walk over. He introduces himself and says, I kid you not, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help”. (I’ll call him “FAA Guy” from now on) He says that they’ve already pulled the tapes, interviewed the tower people and emergency crew and he asks what happened. For a moment I remember reading somewhere that when confronted by the FAA in such a situation to, in effect take the 5th. Don’t say anything. However, I can’t think of a good way to extract myself from this situation. I guess that’s one of those things that, like an engine failure, should be practiced until it’s something you can do without thinking about it. Since my instructor never made me practice the FAA interview evasion technique, I had to plunge right in.
I described what happened as best I could recall. One of the other guys appeared to be writing down what I said (I’ll call him “Scribe”). I was then asked for my pilot certificate and medical. I said they were in the plane. So the four of us (The third guy never said a word, I call him “Silent Bob”) started walking out to the hangar. Halfway through the hangar, I remembered that when I got the new plastic pilot certificate, I started putting it in my wallet instead of my logbook. So I pulled it out and handed it to FAA Guy. He glanced at it and passed it to Scribe. When we got to the plane I leaned inside, and as quickly as possible, removed my medical from my logbook. I figured that if I had made a mistake by talking to the FAA, I wasn’t going to compound the error by letting them have easy access to my logbook. I handed FAA Guy my medical certificate and he glanced at it and handed it to Scribe. Scribe takes the Medical and in turn gives FAA Guy my pilot certificate. I hold out my hand thinking that FAA Guy is going to give me my Pilot Certificate. Instead, he looks at, turns to directly face me, gets about 12 inches from my face and says “Mister Johnston, do you realize your pilot certificate is not valid?”
All noise stops… Except for the sound of my heart beating… loudly… in my ears! What the hell is my heart doing in my ears? My peripheral vision seems to disappear. I start to feel like a fighter pilot in a high-G maneuver. The only thing that exists in my world right now is FAA Guy twelve inches from my face.
I finally remember how to speak and ask (more accurately, croak) “Why?” FAA Guy grins (yes, you are reading correctly, he grins) and points at the little white rectangle on the card and says “You didn’t sign it”.
This, my friends, is why we pay taxes. So comedians that aren’t quite up to the caliber of the late night talk show circuit or local comedy club can practice their skills in a less demanding venue.
I ask Scribe if I can borrow his pen and I sign it right there.
Scribe then hands FAA Guy my medical. He must have exhausted his supply of funny because he hands it over with no comments.
The mechanics come over and tell us that they were unable to manually pull the gear back far enough to latch so they have to use ropes to hold the nose gear back. They can’t tell what’s preventing it from coming back at this time.
FAA Guy asks if I have the aircraft logbooks. I look at him like he’s got a third eyeball growing out of his forehead and say “of course not”. He then asks me to submit a written report and says that the FSDO in my area may be in touch to review the logbooks. He shakes my hand and then they all leave.
My friend shows up with the rental car and drives through the gate and over to the plane. In addition to our baggage, I remove EVERYTHING from the plane. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I’ve heard horror stories about airplane being totaled for what was thought to be minor damage.
At this point, I’m trying to decide what to do next. I figure that I’m probably going to be driving home because I’m guessing a last minute, one-way ticket from Greensboro, NC to Chicago is going to cost a fortune. So my friend drives me over to the terminal and I hop out. I try to check the airlines just to see how much a ticket would cost, but the lines are too long. I find a quiet corner and call American Airlines. The next available flight to Chicago is tomorrow afternoon at a wallet deflating price of $800.00! I go downstairs and rent a car from National ($80 for a two-day, one-way rental). Not too bad. But I don’t have a map and none of the rental car counters have any maps that go beyond North Carolina. But I’ve got a Garmin 396! All I have to do is load the necessary maps and I’m good to go. I go out to the lot and ask my friend if I could go with him to his hotel so I can get the whole computer-GPS connection setup somewhere other than a Starbucks.
So off we go to downtown Greensboro. Up to the hotel room (his son arrived that morning and was already checked in) we go and I start uploading maps. My friend is looking at the pictures and showing them to his son, his friends and anyone else that’s passing by within 3 miles. Right about now, I discover that I’m looking at an 825 mile, 16 hour drive! Rody says, “Even though nobody was hurt, it was still a significant event. You shouldn’t even consider a drive like that. You should go online and see if you can find a flight.”
Travelocity shows a Northwest flight a 6am the next morning for $239 that connects through Detroit. Next, a call to National to change the two-day, one-way rental to a one-day, local rental. Rody offers to have a rollout bed sent up but with a 4:30am wakeup I didn’t want to impose. Besides, I figured that a room by the airport made more sense. I leave all the airplane stuff (tools, headphones, spare parts, etc.) with Rody. He’ll ship it to me once he gets back home.
Back in the car and head back to the airport to find a room. Remember the soccer tournament? Every hotel in Greensboro was sold out! I tried hotel after hotel moving farther and farther from the airport. I finally found one where the answer was “We have two rooms left”. I said “Not anymore. Now you’ve only got one left”. She looked down at the computer and said “No, we’ve still got two left”. I guess my attempt at humor was lost on her. I got the room, went out to eat dinner but I just wasn’t hungry. Besides, every restaurant had an hour-plus wait to get a table. So I grabbed a single at Wendys and went back to the hotel. Tried to sleep but ended up tossing around until 4:30. Got up, went to the airport and ended up getting home around 11am.
It took about two weeks to get the estimate. In addition to a new prop and engine teardown and inspection, all the sheet metal on the bottom forward of the firewall has to be replaced with a bunch of additional work. The reason the nose gear couldn’t lock was the pins that get latched had moved and prevented the gear from fully extending. The grand total for repairs: $58,000.00!
What went wrong:
Prior to this, my plane had experienced 2 nose gear collapses. All prior to a Service Bulletin being issued in 1995. As far as I can tell looking through the logbooks, this SB was never complied with. So far, nobody has been able to tell me if complying with the SB would have prevented this or not. But it’s something that I think should have been done... Especially with two prior collapses.
When I arrived in Atlanta, the FBO moved the plane to a rather tight parking spot pretty far away. One of the things I’ve read about concerning this type of nose gear failure is that it can be caused by improper ground handling (turning the nose gear too far, for example). I guess I could have walked the plane over when they were parking it.
I cycled the gear not once but twice. Had the problem been due to a loss of hydraulic fluid, I could have ended up with no landing gear. Or even worse, partially extended mains. This is probably the result of being in the technology business. When something doesn’t work right with computers, you reboot it. In this case, it could have been a very bad thing.
I didn’t fully brief my passenger. Should have told him that if the nose gear collapses, to get clear of the plane as quickly as possible.
What went right:
Flew the plane!
Made an uneventful, textbook landing… up until the nose gear thing
Everybody walked away - unhurt.
Lessons learned, things to remember:
As soon as that green light didn’t come on, it’s not my airplane anymore! It now belongs to the insurance company. My life, however, is still mine and I’m going to save it (and my passenger’s) at all costs.
Don’t get fancy. Just fly the plane the way you normally do. It’s when you introduce unknown or untried variables that things get out of hand. Keep it simple.
If in doubt, take a minute. I was 99.999% certain that manually pumping the gear would have no effect. But it gave me a chance to get out of the pattern and go through the checklists and confirm I didn’t overlook anything. Another way of thinking about it is: will the NTSB report have a line that says “failure of the pilot to…” I actually thought exactly that during my second approach.
Shut down the engine? I thought about that one too. There’s another procedure just after “LANDING WITHOUT POSITIVE INDICATION OF GEAR LOCKING”, and it’s called “LANDING WITH A DEFECTIVE NOSE GEAR (Or Flat Nose Tire)”. It is similar to the previous procedure except that you move as much weight aft as possible, unlatch the doors, turn all the power off and pull the mixture just after landing. Remember what I said about keep it simple? Besides, I didn’t know if the nose gear was defective which meant the former procedure most closely matched my situation.
If you have an incident at an airport with a FSDO, expect to talk with an aspiring comedian from the FAA sooner rather than later.
AOPA legal services aren't open 24 hours a day.
This is when you find out if you've got a good insurance agent.
Coming soon: Adventures in major aircraft repair far from home.
(C) 2006 NUMA Aviation, Inc. All rights reserved
