BONE Landing

[norm from canada]

Bob Binder sent me this and I thought I'd pass it along

http://www.zianet.com/tedmorris/dg/bombers4.html

[Slartibartfast]

Thanks!

[jrallman]

Doh!

[ron]

I've seen those pictures somewhere before but are still really neat to see again.

Question for those B-1 Experts. How is it possible that the Pilot could land with the gear up? isn't there big red flashing lights, loud buzzers and auto warnings by women with sexy voices stating "warning gear up" "warning gear up" etc. What was the copilot doing, picking his nose? Pilot landing with the gear up by mistake? I don't buy it?

[Impatient Pete]

Whoa! For a second there, based on the topic title, I thought this was one of those Spam topics.

[afterburner]

shoot- a little paint and body and she'll be ready to rock n roll again!

[hazmatt]

I love how they just put the gear down and rolled it away.

Matt

[Coleasterling]

Hmmm. I wonder if I have seen that thing before. Back when I was in high school I would see B-1's flying around all the time. I was told they do high speed training runs around the caprock.

[GRAIL007]

I thought it was bad when a student pilot at CFB Moose Jaw landed with the gear up in his Bae Hawk a couple years ago. Of course the student was only on his third solo flight. These B-1 pilots must have much more experience, it just goes to show you a fatigue goes a long way in pilots making mistakes. We are only human.

I heard the pilots aren't flying anymore though.

cheers

Mark

[Collin]

I've seen those pictures somewhere before but are still really neat to see again.

Question for those B-1 Experts. How is it possible that the Pilot could land with the gear up? isn't there big red flashing lights, loud buzzers and auto warnings by women with sexy voices stating "warning gear up" "warning gear up" etc. What was the copilot doing, picking his nose? Pilot landing with the gear up by mistake? I don't buy it?

Short answer... yes (no sexy voice though). I wasn't there, so can't comment without all the facts.

Cheers

Atis

[modelsntoys]

I had a friend who did a wheels-up landing. He didn't like the sound of the "stupid" horn and lights, so he would leave the gear-up and do something with the plane that would keep the horn from sounding.....don't have any idea what he did, but it worked.....until he forgot to put the gear down.

[Chris Kethan]

More like "BONE-HEADED Landing". That's one the crew would like to have back.

Chris

[Justin Davenport]

Wow. I would have loved to be a fly in the wall when the pilots got debriefed. Someone's going to have to make a diorama of this landing.

[yardbird78]

I seem to recall reading a recap of the accident report a while back that stated it was a series of small events and mistakes that added together into one major screw up. Regardless of the amount of training and experience, the aircrew members are still human and mistakes do happen.

Darwin

[AnthonyWan]

nevermind...

Edited November 30, 2006 by AnthonyWan

[Ishthe47guy]

I remember reading quite a few years back in one of the Air Forces flying safety magazines about a B-1 training flight with a student pilot doing pattern work for a good amount of time, & the gear was raised during each climbout. During the last approach of the day, the crew forgot to lower the gear, or missed that step in the checklist, or assumes the gear was already down (its been a while). The aircraft was moments from touching the ground when the contoller in the tower shouted at them over the radio "B-1 in the pattern, abort, abort abort!" or " Go around!" or something very close to that. The crew applied full power & the day was saved by that vigilant controller. From the jist of this story, there are no bells or whistles in the cockpit to alert the crew for the gear not being down at low airspeeds. I do know a former B-1 pilot that was an instuctor of mine in college that I could ask.

Chris Ish

[otis252]

My father, who has nearlly 10,000 hrs in USMC aircraft just shook his head when he saw this. "One guy on the radio, one guy going though the landing checklist, and both saying check"! He said it was probably a perfect landing from ten miles out, save one detail. Dad said they're two kinda pilots."Those who have landed with wheels up and those that will land with wheels up". Not my thoughts, just one from a old Marine aviator.

Chuck

[Beaconroot]

This one kind of hits home with me. I have a very good friend of mine that happens to be in Dieago Garcia right now trying to fix this airplane. He is a very good mechanic based at Tinker AFB. He drew the short starw for this job. He left sometime in mid September for Davis-Mothan to get the replacement nose and engines and nacells. The last time I talked to him was around the first week of October and they were waiting on a plane to load all the stuff in. He is really wanting to get the job done by late next year (2007).

He didn't have a lot of details on what exactly happened but he does have some ideas. But that dosen't matter now. All they can do is get it in the air again. I hope he gets done as quick as he thinks he can. He is supposed to e-mail me if he can. If I hear anything special I will post it.

Jim Root

[Spaced Marine]

That's an "Oops!" moment if I ever saw one...

[GregS]

"...pilots forgot to lower their landing gear..."

You cant fix stupid

that's a pretty arrogant statement based on the small amount of information available from that site.

[Rodney]

The investigation for this was just completed. I think I read it in the Early Bird but will have to check. Basically, long mission, crew saturation, did not follow check list, last minute hand off of control to co-pilot, and last... co-pilot thought pilot lowered gear and vise-versa. Forgot how many millions the repair bill is going to be.

If I remember this correctly,

Rodney

[Julien (UK)]

In the end we have to remember these guys are human after all, and especailly at the end of a long mission mistakes will happen. Just glad they walked away from it, planes can be fixed and even new ones got.

Julien

[David Walker]

I have a very good friend of mine that happens to be in Dieago Garcia right now trying to fix this airplane. He is a very good mechanic based at Tinker AFB. He drew the short starw for this job. He left sometime in mid September for Davis-Mothan to get the replacement nose and engines and nacells. The last time I talked to him was around the first week of October and they were waiting on a plane to load all the stuff in. He is really wanting to get the job done by late next year (2007).

Thanks for the information on that. I wondered what the fate of the plane was going to be. Glad to hear they're going to (hopefully) be able to put it back together.

[engineman]

:) That accident cost me another couple of days in the AOR, because werotate through Diego and it was closed for a few days to clear it from the runway. They had to borrow a crane from the Navy.

From waht I have haerd this was a long day mission roataing in from Guam. The crew was breifing the approach and the runway was closed for a Buff with hot brakes. The B-1 crew was told to hold,and did so

low and slow and I think they pulled the breakers on the gear warning system because of the constant on and off horn. After the Buff emergency they were cleared for the approach and forgot to push in the gear breakers. Also the AC handed off the aircraft to the copilot for the landing. The entire crew was fatigued.

And I think there were some questions and issues about the co-pilot still being grounded for Go pill testing and never having used it until this mission. Another factor I recall was some trainning problems the co-pilot had, dont know if they were admin type probs though. The way I heard the story is it was a good approach and landing but they got fire lights on all 4 engines and tried to evacute only to be dismayed at the fact the crew entry door only opened a couple of feet. Trust me after flying my share of 26 hour crew duty days it can happen to anyone. It reminds me of the C-5 gear up accident in which the crew got tired of the red gear ligh and put a paper cup over it and did a gear up landing. Glad no body was hurt and the aircraft is repairable

Scott

[David Walker]

Does the B-1 just go with a two man crew? No relief pilot included? (in all honesty I have no idea if the relief pilot system is even considered in the military. I ask this from a airline backround perspective)