What happened
On Thursday, July 9, 1998, at 14:30, a Piper PA-34-200T Seneca, registered HB-LRG, was performing an instruction flight at the Saint-Yan aerodrome. The crew, consisting of an instructor and a student pilot, was engaged in training maneuvers when the aircraft performed a landing with the landing gear in the retracted position.
During the flight, the instructor had deactivated the cockpit's audible warning alarm to facilitate engine failure simulation exercises. As the aircraft approached the final stage of the landing, the controller notified the pilot that the landing gear had not been extended. However, the pilot did not react to this warning before touchdown. At the time of the incident, the crew was also aware of another aircraft performing aerobatic maneuvers in the vicinity of the aerodrome.
The investigation
The investigation focused on the sequence of events leading to the gear-up landing and the crew's failure to identify the configuration error. Investigators examined the cockpit environment, specifically noting that the audible landing gear warning system had been intentionally silenced by the instructor to allow for engine-out training procedures. The investigation also reviewed the communication between the air traffic controller and the flight crew during the final approach.
Findings
- The primary cause of the landing gear-up incident was the failure to execute the required checklists.
- The instructor had disabled the cockpit's audible warning alarm to perform engine failure exercises, which removed a critical layer of redundancy.
- The pilot failed to respond to the controller's verbal warning regarding the gear configuration during the short final approach.
- The aircraft sustained damage during the landing.