CRJ900 Flight Crew report on the series of events that led up to landing without clearance.
Synopsis
CRJ900 Flight Crew report on the series of events that led up to landing without clearance.
Narrative
We were in a CRJ-900 with 30 passengers (very light weight). On arrival; ATC advised us to keep up our speed; 'Speed 310 or greater'...we complied. Just before turning downwind; Captain's MFD went blank...F/O (Pilot Monitoring) ran checklist. I decided to continue as Pilot Flying since it was VMC...no big deal. We had just been slowed and; turning downwind; were told to expedite descent. Approach was aggravated by a flight that missed radio calls...ATC even asked; 'are you in a 737?' Then realized that it was not our company but another. To expedite descent; we extended flight spoilers and flaps to 8 then 20 degrees. Shortly after; Flight Attendants called on intercom. I told my F/O; 'I got (com) 1'. F/O spoke to Flight Attendants on interphone; I continued descent for approach. Approach Control turned us onto base about 12 miles out. We called MD88 ahead of us 'in sight'; F/O was done with intercom and told me that passengers advised Flight Attendants that we had a loose wire/cable/tube (?) sticking out from under the flight spoilers...the Flight Attendants confirmed the sighting and therefore advised us via intercom. We had no warnings in the cockpit and decided that we could continue safely to landing. We were slowed to 180 knots; and cleared for the visual behind the MD-88. Turning final we were slowed to 160 Knots (not a problem with flaps 20). I was slow to drop the gear until over the FAF (just a bit late...I didn't have my usual MFD for reference). We were slow enough to drop the gear and flaps 45 and were stabilized and configured for landing early enough so that a stabilized approach was never a factor. I do not know if we were ever told to switch to Tower; either way we as the crew should have noticed it and done it anyway. We were distracted with the lack of MFD; the thoughts of a loose cable on the wing; the possibility of malfunctioning Ground Lift Dumping and I was certainly thinking about if I would be able to land a very light CRJ-900 smoothly. We watched the the MD-88 ahead of us clear the runway and we landed (without landing clearance). We turned off; and only then realized we were not on tower frequency. The whole approach was so 'normal' that we never even thought about what frequency we were on.The loss of the MFD removed a bit of situational awareness...it caused things to be just a little different than usual; but ALONE would not have been more than a small distraction. The need for my F/O to address the intercom while on downwind/base phase of flight turned us temporarily into a single pilot operation. Thoughts of if the spoilers/Ground Lift Dumping would operate normally were a distraction. Short approach would not have been a factor IF nothing else had occurred...i.e. MFD; Intercom; etc. This was a good example of a 'Chain of events'. None of the things that happened were significant by themselves; but together they obviously had quite an impact. We switched to tower frequency and requested taxi instructions. Tower advised that he had tried to call us several times...we acknowledged and apologized. If you lose any info (displays) on your side; let the other guy fly. Don't think so much about making a smooth landing if it is going to take away from your brain power required to FLY the airplane. BE EXTRA AWARE WHEN SOMETHING...ANYTHING IS DIFFERENT THAN USUAL.
Second reporter narrative
While on approach to landing we never heard a frequency change to Tower and landed without landing clearance. We were distracted as we joined a short final to Runway 27L by a call from the Flight Attendants due to a passenger reporting a cable or piece of the spoilers dangling in the wind on the right wing. I handled talking to the Flight Attendants while the Captain took over the radios and controls. After I finished asking the Flight Attendants several questions to asses the severity of the event I found out that it was just a wire hanging free and flapping in the wind. I decided that we could continue as it sounded like just a loose grounding wire which turned out to be the case. Also the Captains Multi Function Display went blank depriving him of full situational awareness. We then joined short final as I came back onto the radios and the Captain and I quickly discussed the situation and decided to continue. During this time we didn't hear any instructions for a frequency change to Tower and we were sufficiently distracted by thinking about the broken spoiler and if it would pose a threat to the flight; that we didn't notice that we hadn't been switched to Tower or that we hadn't been cleared to land. We landed shortly after and as we taxied off we realized that we we not receiving taxi instructions since we were not on Tower frequency. We immediately switched over and realized our mistake. Tower told us that they had been trying to call us and issued new taxi instructions. We then taxied to the gate with no further incident.
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Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.