Pilot reported landing gear indication problems and uncertainty if the landing gear was lowered before landing. Upon landing the gear was down and locked.

Date: 2022-02 · Aircraft: PA-23-250 Aztec · Phase: landing

Anomalies: aircraft-equipment-problem-critical|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-far|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-maintenance|deviation-discrepancy-procedural-published-material-policy|ground-excursion-runway

Synopsis

Pilot reported landing gear indication problems and uncertainty if the landing gear was lowered before landing. Upon landing the gear was down and locked.

Narrative

I was flying Aircraft X back to ZZZ and was unable to get 3 green lights to determine that my gear was down. I was able to talk with other more experienced Aztec pilots on frequency and they were trouble shooting with me. I only had enough fuel to do a few laps in the pattern in the untowered airport to trouble shoot. I called NAME (Chief Safety Pilot for Company) after I had exhausted all of my options and ran through the emergency checklists. I blew the bottle; and before that I tried to manually pump the gear down. I was not getting any resistance in the hand pump. The nose gear light started to illuminate; but then went back out; and came on again sporadically. There is a mirror for the nose gear but it was too fogged up to see out of. NAME helped me trouble shoot but nothing seemed to be working; I even tried calling on UNICOM frequency to see if someone could come out as I did a low pass to tell me if my gear was down. Nobody answered. I finally got a line guy on frequency as I was on short final and he was not at the airport but was on frequency. I [requested priority handling] and he was able to call the emergency authorities. I slowed the plane as much as I could; cut the mixtures in my flare; turned off all electronics; and cut the fuel flow. I decided I would land on the runway and not the grass. I landed and it was evident that my gear had in fact been extended; thankfully. I rolled off onto a small smooth grass patch after having slowed the plane down to get out of the way of any possible traffic that was unaware [the situation] considering it was an untowered airport. The FBO cancelled the emergency services before they arrived and towed my aircraft to our company hangar to be looked at. I was informed by the Mechanic that the NAV light switch was wired in such a way that the gear lights don't come on when the NAV lights are engaged. I brought up to him that my nose gear light would illuminate sporadically; and he didn't know why that was happening. Everything turned out fine.

Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.