abelenky

Apparently this incident happened in 2010, but the ATSB report came out, and is now being reported on.

Jetstar pilots 'forgot to lower wheels' due to mobile phone

TheFly

Oh boy......

Distracted pilot forgets to lower landing gear - Yahoo! Travel

We all know that playing on a cell phone while driving a car is a no-no. So, it stands to reason that commercial airline pilots would abstain while flying. Never assume, folks. Never assume.

In a story that is sure to cause no small amount of outrage, a Jetstar pilot was forced to abort his Singapore landing when he realized at the last moment (the plane was 392 feet from the ground) that he'd forgotten to put the landing gear down. His excuse: He was distracted by incoming text messages to his phone.

Sleepy Air Canada pilot thought Venus was a plane

The incident, which took place on a 220-seat Airbus A320, occurred on May 27, 2010. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recently released the findings of its investigation. The captain was no rookie. He had more than 13,000 hours of flight experience, while the co-pilot had around 4,000 hours.

According to the investigation's findings, the plane's co-pilot turned off the automatic pilot in preparation to land. At this point, the captain's cell phone started making noises. The captain apparently tried to turn it off, but had trouble unlocking it.

As the plane descended farther, neither was aware that the landing gear had yet to be lowered. The co-pilot looked at the instrument panel, saw that "something was not quite right," but was unable to determine what that was.

At around 720 feet above ground, the plane let off an alert that the landing gear had not been deployed. The captain tried to lower it, but by then the plane was too low for the landing gear to be extended and locked into place. At 392 feet, the captain elected to abort the landing and return to the skies. The plane later touched down safely.

Fatigue was apparently also a factor in the mistakes. The previous night, the captain was woken twice by hotel fire alarms while the co-pilot was disturbed by housekeeping at 4:30 a.m.

Kenny

While I'm no fan of Jet*, he wasn't actually texting on approach, he was trying to unlock the phone so he could switch it off, according to the report.

FlightGear

here's the ATSB report

Kenny

Not sure why you thought I should read the report again but the paragraph I was referring to in my original post was.....

"The captain stated that he was in the process of unlocking and turning off his mobile phone at that time and did not hear the call for the missed approach altitude to be set in the FCU."

Regardless, it was an incredibly ill advised thing to do, so close to the ground. Just leave the damn thing alone and sort it out on the ground.

FastDEW

Why was the phone left on in the first place?

rickair7777

That could have been an honest mistake (or maybe he was playing angry birds enroute).

Dashdog

I recently had a captain actually answer his phone while on an approach. Not that it matters much, but it was an ILS in IMC, inside the marker. A friend of mine flew with him a few months later; he did the same thing. I know what you're thinking; this was some 23 year-old frosted-tip, earphone-wearing, backpack-bedecked regional airline wonder boy. Nope; major airline captain in his 50's.
Now when I'm flying with someone new and during the briefing they ask if I have any questions or anything to add, I ask them to leave their phone off for the entire flight.

Left Handed

Since when do they put 220 seats on an A320?