Qantas pilots forgot to lower wheels

[Mal]

Qantas pilots forgot to lower wheels | The Australian

QANTAS has stood down two pilots after a Boeing 767 landing in Sydney came within 700ft of the ground before the flight crew realised they had not lowered the plane's undercarriage.

The airline and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau have launched investigations into the October 26 incident. The pilots are due to be interviewed by authorities on Friday.

The crew on the Melbourne-Sydney CityFlyer service apparently recognised the problem and had started go-around procedures when they received a "gear too low" aural warning from the aircraft's enhanced ground proximity warning system.

 

[Slats7]

Well it won't be long and this will be all over no news.

 

[Slats7]

It's made no news' front page!! Who would have thought??

 

[harvyk]

Que nonews readers q(u)antas bashing in 3-----2------1------

 

[oz_mark]

Notwithstanding the checks and balances that picked the error up, it does seem a bit of an unusual breakdown in procedure.

 

[NM]

From what has been reported, it would seem that:

1. The pilots made a mistake
2. The systems (aircraft and procedural) identified the mistake and rectified the situation (go-around)
3. Qantas has taken appropriate immediate action
4. Qantas and CASA are investigating with the aim of identifying why it happened and minimising the chance of it happening again

I see this as proof that the "system" works. No need for any bashing at all.

 

[Mal]

Notwithstanding the checks and balances that picked the error up, it does seem a bit of an unusual breakdown in procedure.

I think this is a different type of usual to the normal "Qantas bashing" that nonews and friends do.

Forgetting to put the wheels down as part of a procedure is very bad and shows a break-down in procedures. Having the checks and systems in place which made the pilots start a go-around before the automated systems kicked in are good.

The ATSB report will make good reading - as it always does to get the full story.

 

[docjames]

Certainly not an ideal situation but the procedures in place stopped a disaster thankfully.

This is certainly more worrying than previous "incidents" bar the exmouth incident.

Interesting JQ got into the news on the same day.

 

[straitman]

Forgetting to put the wheels down as part of a procedure is very bad and shows a break-down in procedures. Having the checks and systems in place which made the pilots start a go-around before the automated systems kicked in are good.

A not so subtle reminder that the pilots are human and can and do make mistakes. Hence the systematic approach to everything they do coupled with the duplication and backup systems that are incorporated.

 

[harvyk]

Que nonews readers q(u)antas bashing in 3-----2------1------

And there it is... Including that lovely "quantas" spelling... I'm glad nonews keep to form with the comments they allow through...

In regards to the incident itself, well it's certainly not good, and certainly shouldn't have happened. But had this been just about any other airline (of which no tenuous QF link could be found) performing a go-around procedure (which is apparently the procedure that the pilots do the most training for) I doubt it would have even made it into the back pages of a news limited newspaper, let alone front and centre of news.com.au

 

[medhead]

And there it is... Including that lovely "quantas" spelling... I'm glad nonews keep to form with the comments they allow through...

In regards to the incident itself, well it's certainly not good, and certainly shouldn't have happened. But had this been just about any other airline (of which no tenuous QF link could be found) performing a go-around procedure (which is apparently the procedure that the pilots do the most training for) I doubt it would have even made it into the back pages of a news limited newspaper, let alone front and centre of news.com.au

So you think that if this was virgin blue then news limitied wouldn't have reported it?

The fact is that news papers report locally relevant news. The focus on qantas in Australian based news limit publications is most likely due to the fact that Qantas is a dominant australian airline. I'm sure that the Sun in England is not going to report this qantas story, but if it happend to BA or Virgin Atlantic I'm sure that News limited UK would be reporting the story. Or an AA story would be in whatever NYC news paper murdoch owns.

It is all about relevance to the readership.

 

[harvyk]

So you think that if this was virgin blue then news limitied wouldn't have reported it?

I'm putting that into the maybe basket... Unfortuantly without being in the upper echelons of news limit decision making process I can't say for sure.

IMO however there appears to be a bias against QF. Be it a real bias or a perceived bias I can not say.

 

[RescuePilot]

From what has been reported, it would seem that:

1. The pilots made a mistake
2. The systems (aircraft and procedural) identified the mistake and rectified the situation (go-around)
3. Qantas has taken appropriate immediate action
4. Qantas and CASA are investigating with the aim of identifying why it happened and minimising the chance of it happening again

I see this as proof that the "system" works. No need for any bashing at all.

To quote from PPrune - Assuming there were NO other problems leading to this situation (arriving at 700ft without the gear down and locked) then it is quite simply an error - remember human factors!!!.
It was always going to 'turn out OK' as I would seriously doubt ANY Commercial Pilot flying for ANY airline in Australia would attempt to land from this situation (putting the gear down first of course).

Whilst not knowing SOPs for other airlines, it's a no brainer for QF ops....go around (must be stable and configured etc by 500' in VMC). So, it was always going to result in a missed approach which remember is in the NORMAL section of the FCOM.

People make mistakes. We have all done it. This crew will go away...eat some humble pie and accept responsibility for probably falling victim to becoming complacent on the old CitiFlyer route.

Folks if i and other Pilots operated my aircraft in fear and was scared of sticking my hand up and owning up when safety issues/NCR's occurred in flight then we would be experiencing more in flight incidents

The guys flying the Red Ratted tailed AC are trained well above many others in the world - even sh*tstar tech crew so lets wait for the final report before we jump to other rcm's - :!: