Qantas has stood down the pilots at the controls of a Boeing 767-300 Cityflyer service which last Monday aborted a landing at Sydney when its ground proximity warning system indicated that the wheels hadn’t been lowered.
The 254-seat jet was descending through 700 feet, or very close to landing, when the electronic voice of the GPWS said “too low gear”.
The pilots had seconds earlier realised the undercarriage hadn’t been lowered and initiated a go-around procedure, hitting the throttles hard and cleaning up the wing just before the synthetic voice sounded its warning.
The jet, on a flight from Melbourne, continued to sink toward the runway after it had descended below 700 feet, before responding to the thrust and control surface changes and climbing away from the runway for a normal approach and landing.
Just how close it came to hitting the runway wheels up will be determined by the ATSB investigation. ATSB has listed the matter as a “serious incident”.
A Qantas spokesman said this morning:
This was an extremely rare occurrence but one we have taken seriously. The flight crew knew all required procedures but there was a brief communications breakdown. They responded quickly to the situation and instigated a go around. The cockpit alert coincided with their actions. There was no flight safety issue.
The incident was reported to the ATSB and the pilots were stood down. We are supporting the ATSB’s investigation and our own investigations will determine what further action might be warranted.
In fact a quick search of the accessible data bases found no comparable instance of a modern jet being flown by any airline wheels-up on approach to an airport so low that this specific GPWS warning was triggered.
Go-arounds are infrequent but certainly not rare at Sydney Airport because of other aircraft not clearing the intended runways as fast as expected, or because of deteriorating visibility or concerns about wind shear.
For airlines and their pilots such rejected landings are routine and trained for. But a wheels-up configuration on an approach like that flown by the Qantas Cityflyer last Monday is another matter. It was rare, alarming and should properly be the subject of a searching inquiry, including an examintaion of what the Qantas spokesman refered to as “a brief communications breakdown”.
It is my understanding that the standard cockpit procedures in relation to landing at airports, (or any other location for that matterother than ditching in the water) require wheels to be down. Perhaps the pilots were confused an assumed they were ditching in Botany Bay.
Putting down the wheels is normally one of several essential steps including lowering lowering of flaps, aligning the aircraft with the runway and reducing speed an aircraft is going to land.
To assist pilots in this regard there are mandated checklists and in addition there is generally a pilot and co-pilot as an additional risk management contingency, especially if one is asleep or negligent. One can only assume that the pilots did not have their minds on the job, or possibly had their minds on some other job. I would leave possibilities in that regard to the reader’s imagination.
The reason for putting humans in the cockpit with checklists and procedures is for passenger safety. Otherwise we can use computers for this end and leave the pilot on the ground. It would appear that the only thing that saved everybody in this instance was the final risk management facility, a recorded verbal warning linked to ground proximity radar.
If the ATSB has any enforcement capability left, and by all accounts this capacity is subject to some question, the pilots concerned should be sacked as they are not fit to have responsibilityseveral hundred people’s lives, notwithstanding their own and the rest of the flight crew.
Left to its own devices, Qantas will do little or nothing to punish these pilots because to do so will will reflect badly on internal competency. As with the recent failures to undertake mandated pressure bulkhead maintenance it would appear that the regulators will do nothing, as they appear to be beholden to commercial and political interests, with passenger safety coming a poor second.
An aircraft is on final approach and the cockpit crew realise that something on the checklist has been missed — for whatever reason — so they abort and go around again. Isn’t this what’s meant to happen?
That’s why we practice go-arounds, as for gear up landings…..there are them that have and them that haven’t……….. yet
Seriously, the system worked!
There are only two types of pilot. Those who have attempted to land gear up in the past and those who have not done so yet.
In this case no big deal. Safely detected missed check list item at 700′ and initiated go around even before aural warning sounded. Pilots acted in accordance with their training. No actual danger to aircraft or passengers. Why bag Qantas over this? What is the agenda here?
No Stilgherrian, I would assume they are meant to land with the wheels actually down. I am ignorant to most things aeronautical but agree with Greg – this seems like a pretty fundamental mistake. Is it common Peter – is that what you are suggesting?