What happened
As the flight approached Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport in Florida, the crew prepared for a visual approach to the runway and notified air traffic control that the field was in sight. During the approach, the pilot became distracted while attempting to locate the runway. The aircraft subsequently touched down on the runway with its landing gear retracted. The plane slid approximately 2,600 feet before coming to a stop, resulting in substantial damage to a structural component and fire damage to the bottom of the fuselage. There were no fatalities reported.
While the crew's checklists included tasks for verifying the landing gear, cockpit voice recorder data showed no recorded checklist challenge-response callouts during the approach, despite the copilot's claim that the checklist had been read. Following the touchdown, the pilot inquired about the status of the landing gear, to which the copilot responded, "We never put it down."
The investigation
The investigation focused on the aircraft's audible landing gear warning system. Although the system is designed to alert the crew if the gear is not extended during landing configuration, no sounds from the warning horn were captured on the cockpit voice recorder, and the pilot reported not hearing a warning. Post-accident testing confirmed that the landing gear itself operated normally via both normal and emergency extension systems, and all visual indicators correctly showed the gear position. However, the audible warning system was found to be inoperative due to a fractured wire (labeled 68CA8) that had separated from the CA relay.
Metallurgical analysis of the wire indicated the fracture was caused by overstress, though the source of this stress was not identified. Because the landing gear warning and the cabin altitude warning systems share the same CA relay, the failure of the gear horn would have also disabled the cabin altitude warning. While a preflight check of the cabin altitude system should have revealed this failure, maintenance records showed no previous reports of such an issue, and the crew provided no information regarding their preflight observations of that specific system.
Findings
The investigation identified several regulatory discrepancies regarding the flight crew. The pilot was operating with a U.S. commercial certificate that was not valid for carrying persons for compensation or hire, lacked a U.S. medical certificate, and did not include an instrument rating or a type rating for the aircraft. Additionally, the pilot had not completed a proficiency check within the previous 12 months. The copilot held only a private pilot certificate without an instrument rating. While these discrepancies were not linked directly to the mechanical cause of the accident, they constituted noncompliance with Federal Aviation Regulations.