blastoff

No mechanical link. Even when you manually extend the gear, you have to release the doors before pulling the handle that allows the gear to free-fall.

Timmay

Hey, I'm impressed too. Nobody's going to knock this guys' flying performance. It's phenomenal they were able to get the bird back in the air. They did a great job flying the airplane. As far as the events leading up to the gear-up landing, though, I think we're all fortunate that we get a good CRM lesson without any loss of lives.

mooney

Is it standard procedure there for the PF to drop his own gear? Or maybe just a typo on the part of the media.

freezingflyboy

I'm gonna go with B.

AirWillie

Any time there's a discrepancy with the gear, a simple flyby will confirm what you know or don't know. This could have ended much worse.

tangoindia

I met the FO about six months ago during a NIFA Regional competition. He was one of the judges. Little did I know he is a graduate from my college. I recall he told us (don’t remember the exact words ) that apparently they had something like a “gear disagreement indication” (I don’t fly jet’s so take it easy… ) but after x-checking and due to the factor that another indication didn’t “popped” on the EICAS, basically it was a “disregard”

He said that just before the fireworks started, he felt he was a “little low” and no tires on the ground. Added power slowly to avoid sinking the nose into the ground and then you all know the rest of the story.

Great Job!

freezingflyboy

I hate to "Monday Morning QB" this but the FO was right the first time when he questioned the indication and said "can we land with that?". Basically how things work in the ERJ and most transport category aircraft that I know of is that if you get a warning message or abnormal indication you follow the procedure required to clear it. Your first reaction should be "something is wrong here" not "that can't be right". Cross checking on the RMU engine page might have seemed like a good idea but that is just a repeater. There is not a separate sensor and indication system for the RMU, it just displays the same data that is being provided to the EICAS (in this case, that the gear was down). Basically what the LG/LEVER DISAGREE message is telling you is that the lever has been selected to one position and the landing gear is not in the corresponding position. The state of the landing gear can not be confirmed so the airplane goes DING! We need to take a look at this guys!.

Now, had they discontinued the approach and pulled out the QRH they would have found that the very first step is to cycle the landing gear lever. The next step says:
IF message persists as a result of extension:
ABNORMAL LANDING GEAR EXTENSION procedure..................Perform
(conveniently is located on the next page.)

Great bit of airmanship, but poor example of systems knowledge and resource management. We can just be thankful that it turned out alright for everyone involved.

ERJ135

Typo...... At least for Eagle. PNF always drops the gear unless of course he/she is unvailable.

flying4dollars

I was a captain on the 145 for over 6 years at XJT. Thank God none of my mistakes were published...it's amazing how much criticism can come from a mistake. There's not a single pilot out there who can honestly say "that couldn't happen to me" ...I'm glad the Eagle guys caught their mistake in time and brought a successful conclusion to a bad situation...

plasticpi

I can't help but think that this near incident could have been avoided with some better engineering. If the handle was down, and something in the airplane sensed that the gears were not down and locked, then why did it give a 3 green indication? Any one of us could have fallen victim to trusting 3 green lights over one abnormal indication. I personally think that the engineers in this case have a responsibility to ensure that the only thing that can turn that green light on is if the gear is down and locked.

There's something to be said for the ol' stone age technology...