Air carrier captain reported an egpws 'landing gear not down' warning during visual approach to fsd ...

Narrative:

Fsd was landing runway 21; we were set up for runway 21 but also requested runway 03 to facilitate our arrival. We also requested direct to cfbxm to give us a longer final to runway 03; and it was granted. Shortly afterwards ATC asked us if we had the field in sight; and we replied in the affirmative. ATC responded; 'you are cleared the visual to runway 03; maintain 2000 feet.' I read back the clearance; and selected 2000 feet in the MCP altimeter. The first officer (PF) followed the FMC ground track & descended to 2000 feet. At some point nearing final he commented; 'I don't have the localizer; oh; we have the localizer in for 21.' I changed the frequency to the correct one; and we tracked inbound on first the FMS course & then the loc. By this point we had reached 2000 feet MSL & I realized we were close to the ground. I looked out ahead & reassured myself that we were clear of terrain. The first officer then made the comment; 'this seems too low.' while I wished he would have disengaged the autopilot & climbed higher; I was confident that we had obstruction clearance [the radar altimeter at this time read approximately 1100 feet]. As he was about to configure with landing gear we received a GPWS warning of 'left/G not down.' I glanced at the radar altimeter and it indicated 800 feet AGL. Again I was confident of terrain clearance & had the runway in sight; so I elected to allow him to continue. We then finished normal configuration; intercepted the glide path; and the landing was uneventful. We were distracted by two items close to the airport environment. The first was the runway change from 21 to 03; and the second was a balloon launch close to the airfield. While we briefed the possibility of a runway change which would expedite our arrival; as the PNF I forgot to change the localizer frequency to aid the PF. The balloon launch also occupied quite a bit of my outside scan; since they reported on approach frequency that there were four balloons and I only spotted two. The fact that ATC cleared us to an altitude for the arrival which was much lower than normal did not register because I was distracted by other conditions. As the captain I should have been more aggressive in insisting the first officer climb up to a more reasonable altitude once I realized that ATC had assigned us one in error.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier Captain reported an EGPWS 'LANDING GEAR NOT DOWN' warning during visual approach to FSD after ATC cleared the aircraft too low and the crew was distracted by a balloon launch event.

Narrative: FSD was landing Runway 21; we were set up for Runway 21 but also requested Runway 03 to facilitate our arrival. We also requested direct to CFBXM to give us a longer final to Runway 03; and it was granted. Shortly afterwards ATC asked us if we had the field in sight; and we replied in the affirmative. ATC responded; 'You are cleared the visual to Runway 03; maintain 2000 feet.' I read back the clearance; and selected 2000 feet in the MCP altimeter. The F/O (PF) followed the FMC ground track & descended to 2000 feet. At some point nearing final he commented; 'I don't have the localizer; oh; we have the localizer in for 21.' I changed the frequency to the correct one; and we tracked inbound on first the FMS course & then the loc. By this point we had reached 2000 feet MSL & I realized we were close to the ground. I looked out ahead & reassured myself that we were clear of terrain. The F/O then made the comment; 'This seems too low.' While I wished he would have disengaged the autopilot & climbed higher; I was confident that we had obstruction clearance [the radar altimeter at this time read approximately 1100 feet]. As he was about to configure with landing gear we received a GPWS warning of 'L/G NOT DOWN.' I glanced at the radar altimeter and it indicated 800 feet AGL. Again I was confident of terrain clearance & had the runway in sight; so I elected to allow him to continue. We then finished normal configuration; intercepted the glide path; and the landing was uneventful. We were distracted by two items close to the airport environment. The first was the runway change from 21 to 03; and the second was a balloon launch close to the airfield. While we briefed the possibility of a runway change which would expedite our arrival; as the PNF I forgot to change the localizer frequency to aid the PF. The balloon launch also occupied quite a bit of my outside scan; since they reported on approach frequency that there were four balloons and I only spotted two. The fact that ATC cleared us to an altitude for the arrival which was much lower than normal did not register because I was distracted by other conditions. As the Captain I should have been more aggressive in insisting the F/O climb up to a more reasonable altitude once I realized that ATC had assigned us one in error.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1369616
Time
Date	201607
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	FSD.Airport
State Reference	SD
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Dawn
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Widebody Low Wing 2 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Final Approach
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 97 Flight Crew Total 9800 Flight Crew Type 911
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Inflight Event / Encounter CFTT / CFIT

Air carrier captain reported an egpws 'landing gear not down' warning during visual approach to fsd after ATC cleared the aircraft too low and the crew was distracted by a balloon launch event.