The old saying in aviaiton is "there are those that have, and there are those that will".

B-1 Gear Up

Hope they enjoyed their Air Force careers.

Nobody's perfect?

Here is the kicker, I'm told by someone in Wing safety that they didn't even realize the gear wasn't down until they tried to open the bottom hatch.

What happens to a pilot in a case like this, do they get thrown out of the USAF? Or just get a good talking to?

Would love to know what happens to them?

Cheers
Barry

If the Accident Board found them at fault, most likely they would be pulled from flying status and given a desk job in some remote place like Alaska until their current obligation is up, then they can go fly fly for an some airline. I always tell the story of a guy who taxied down the wrong taxiway in a KC-135, and could not get turned around due to some poles. They had to remove a bunch to get him out. He was grounded over something as simple as that. Thats why I am always saying about "real world parking", is that the parking is based on wingspan, weight and mission restrictions.

That's the thing with this profession, you make one mistake and your career can be over just like that. Certainly there are times when accidents happen and the pilots/crews are praised as heros for their actions. Then you have a case like this, long, long flight, tired crew, fatigued with their circadian rythem probably way out of wack and they make a simple mistake. But we use checklists for a reason, and verifying that the gear is down in a multi-person cockpit is as basic as it gets. We're supposed to fly as a crew, you watch my back and I'll watch yours. But you'd be amazed at the power and subtleness of fatigue.

I certainly don't know what happened in that aircraft but I'm sure the guys flying it were suffering the effects of fatigue and because of that I can understand how something like this can happen.

Something along these lines happened just last month at the Newark-Liberty Intl airport in New Jersey. A Continental 757 accidentally landed on a taxiway that was parallel to the runway (Rwy 29) they were supposed to land on. Crew was returning from oversees(long flight) and landing in difficult conditions(high winds and rarely used runway). Luckily the taxiway was free of other aircraft and the crew got the aircraft stopped with only some skid marks as evidence. Had their been another aircraft on that taxiway, well it wouldn't have been pretty. But like I said, fatigue is a nasty little thing.

There was an old saying when I was flying.... "In God we trust, everything else we check." Your right about crews working together because no matter how much training you have, anybody can make a mistake. I am sure the fatigue factor had something to do with it but they are suppose to be highly trained professionals.

I also remember when a Continental landed at Ellsworth AFB right in the middle of a ORI. He thought he was landing at Rapid City, which is on the approach path into Ellsworth. Continental must have a history of doing things like that.

We also had a Continental (Air Mike) have a flap/slat fall off on his approach into Guam. Almost hit a shopping center. Talk about corrosion control... Not one of my favorite airlines to fly on....

MIKE JG wrote:That's the thing with this profession, you make one mistake and your career can be over just like that.

Amen to that...

I might not be the glorified taxi cab driver that pilots are, but after getting out of the service, I got my A&P and am now a Corporate Jet Mechanic.

In aviation there is no room for error. With the added bonus of having EVERYTHING you do cataloged so the Feds know right were to go when something hits the fan.

I tend to want to cut the poor guys some slack, but unfortunately I don't make the rules and that won't happen.

I hope they like sorting mail in adak.

Taking into consideration the money spent on training these guy`s, you would have thought they would have at least one chance afterwards. I bet they wouldn`t do the same thing again.

dave lock

MIKE JG wrote:That's the thing with this profession, you make one mistake and your career can be over just like that. Certainly there are times when accidents happen and the pilots/crews are praised as heros for their actions. Then you have a case like this, long, long flight, tired crew, fatigued with their circadian rythem probably way out of wack and they make a simple mistake. But we use checklists for a reason, and verifying that the gear is down in a multi-person cockpit is as basic as it gets. We're supposed to fly as a crew, you watch my back and I'll watch yours. But you'd be amazed at the power and subtleness of fatigue.

Concur!! But it's no excuse. There has to be other mitigating factors involved. Saying they forgot to drop the gear because they were tired is not an acceptable excuse. Thousands of sorties have been flown past and present with fatigued pilots and they obviously landed safely. There was a breakdown somewhere of a human nature.

Its called a "Failure in Crew Coordination". Another words they failed to follow procedures...

magic1085 wrote:glorified taxi cab driver that pilots are

Maybe, but I'm damn good at it!

flyboy wrote:Its called a "Failure in Crew Coordination"

Or, more simply, pilot (or human) error - the cause of most incidents.

Lot of times blame is laid else where.... had a crew do 2, high-power aborts on the take-off roll. Going back around for the 3rd try the crew heard a loud bang, instead of pulling in and letting maintenance take a look, (and they taxied right by the ramp we parked on) they went ahead for the 3rd shot. Problem was it was determined that the "loud bang" they heard was on one of the main mounts the fuse plugs blew due to "hot brakes". On the 3rd take-off roll the single main mount left couldn't handle the pressure and blew. Cause of the incident????? Tires under inflated... yeah right.... they even went as far as suspending all the quals of the guy who signed off the daily inspection.

For maintenance, I have seen anything from a hand slap for a maintenance error to a loss of a stripe. The hand slap will be for something minor, with no risk of life or major damage to aircraft. IE. After a plane wash, forgot to pull off a piece of tape. To the loss stripe coming from signing off on many gripes, that actually weren't fixed, or fixed correctly. (this incident the aircraft was in for a major inspection, so the many gripes found to still be on the aircraft happened during the inspection fix phase, it wasn't over say a 3 or 4 month span with aircraft actually flying. Though this was a very scary experience.... I was the guy getting ready to release the aircraft "Safe For Flight" and the maintenance guys just keep finding more things wrong, plus going though the Aircraft Discrepancy Book(ADB) looking at all the sign-offs were starting raise the hair on my neck.... I stopped to find the Master Chief (E-9) to tell him we needed to look this plane over agian prior to the check flight, I checked the places I knew him to be and he wasn't there. I was then standing in maintenance at the counter continuing to review the ADB. I stopped and bent over the counter as to lay my head down on the book, when I felt a hand on my shoulder, the Master Chief, saying "Hey man, we're done with this aircraft, send the book back to the inspection team leader, they are going to re-do/verifiy all maintenance signed off by the person in question."