What happened
At 20:42 Atlantic daylight time, a PA-31-350 Navajo Chieftain, registration C-GYYJ, performed a gear-up landing at Halifax, Nova Scotia, while operating a scheduled cargo and courier flight. The flight, which included two crew members and one passenger, was completing a multi-leg route through New Brunswick.
During the night-time ILS approach to Runway 15, the crew encountered challenging conditions, including low ceilings and moderate turbulence. Because the aircraft lacked an autopilot, the crew hand-flew the approach. Due to a failure in the internal backlighting of the Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI), the pilot flying struggled to read the glideslope information. To compensate, the captain used a flashlight to illuminate the instrument. However, when the captain momentarily diverted the flashlight beam to consult approach charts, the pilot flying missed the "Dot Above" cue—a critical moment used to trigger the landing gear extension.
As the descent continued, the crew managed the aircraft's speed by adjusting power and flaps, but they failed to extend the landing gear. The aircraft touched down smoothly on the runway with the gear retracted, causing damage to the engines, propellers, and fuselage. There were no injuries to the crew or passenger.
The investigation
Investigators examined the aircraft's maintenance history and found that the HSI lighting defect had been unserviceable for at least one previous flight. Although company maintenance had reportedly left a note regarding the defect, there was no formal entry in the aircraft's journey logbook, violating the operator's Maintenance Control and Policy Manual.
The investigation also looked into the cockpit environment and procedures. It was noted that the crew's workload was high due to the night-time IFR conditions and the need to use a flashlight for instrument visibility. Furthermore, the investigation found that the landing gear warning horn did not alert the crew, likely because the throttle positions remained above the activation threshold during the approach.
Findings
- The crew missed the critical "Dot Above" call when the flashlight beam was moved away from the HSI.
- The landing gear was not lowered because the crew did not complete a before-landing check, a deficiency compounded by the fact that the aircraft's SOPs lacked a short-final gear check.
- The crew failed to detect the gear-up configuration because the high flap setting created enough drag to mask the low-drag profile of the retracted gear.
- Maintenance procedures were not followed, as the known lighting defect was neither recorded in the journey log nor formally deferred.
- High workload, the lack of a gear warning horn alert, and the transition of control at decision height all contributed to the crew's lack of awareness regarding the aircraft's configuration.