Narrative:

I inadvertently left the gear pins in and took off. There were a number of pressures and distractions that contributed to this. At check in at the hotel; we received an erroneous brief for a different plane in a different city. Called crew support and they gave me the new brief for this flight 64 minutes from notification. We made it to the lobby in less than 30 minutes and could not find transportation faster than the hotel shuttle. We arrived at the hangar at go time. During the ride over I received calls from [operations] asking for our ETA and explaining what they had done to help. They said the plane was in the hangar for preflight. I asked them to pull it out so I could do everything out there. They refused. Halfway through the preflight; we were asked if we could be airborne in 30; if not we would be off the trip and the hot spare aircraft would take it. I said we could and that; since bags and catering were already on; we would be ready faster than the other one. Then they pulled the trip from our line; started to pull bags and they put the trip back on our line. Finished preflight in the hangar; went inside to get paperwork and talk to passengers. When I got to the plane; the tug was still attached and pins in. I set the panel for auto fuel and went in the cockpit to do flight planning while [the co-pilot] did cockpit checks. Halfway through this; the fueler came in and said the plane wasn't taking fuel. I went out to reset for manual fueling when operations asked if I would be ready for passengers after fueling. I went back in to finish flight planning and passengers were brought out. The tug left while I was talking to the passengers. I came back to the plane; saw it without the tug; and remembered I did the preflight in the hangar; but forgot that the pins were still in. In our rush; the co-pilot forgot to do the final walk around. When we got to the before start checklist I forgot again that I did not pull the pins after the plane was pulled from the hangar and verified that they were stowed. We were faced with pressure from multiple sources. We were set up to fail with the short show. I wanted the plane out of the hangar for just the reason that bit us. I should have been more assertive. We let ourselves get distracted. We rushed in response to the pressure instead of slowing the pace. We should put safety first; and the completion of the schedule second.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Cl-35 flight crew reported that they took off with the gear pins installed due to schedule pressure.

Narrative: I inadvertently left the gear pins in and took off. There were a number of pressures and distractions that contributed to this. At check in at the hotel; we received an erroneous brief for a different plane in a different city. Called crew support and they gave me the new brief for this flight 64 minutes from notification. We made it to the lobby in less than 30 minutes and could not find transportation faster than the hotel shuttle. We arrived at the hangar at go time. During the ride over I received calls from [Operations] asking for our ETA and explaining what they had done to help. They said the plane was in the hangar for preflight. I asked them to pull it out so I could do everything out there. They refused. Halfway through the preflight; we were asked if we could be airborne in 30; if not we would be off the trip and the hot spare aircraft would take it. I said we could and that; since bags and catering were already on; we would be ready faster than the other one. Then they pulled the trip from our line; started to pull bags and they put the trip back on our line. Finished preflight in the hangar; went inside to get paperwork and talk to passengers. When I got to the plane; the tug was still attached and pins in. I set the panel for auto fuel and went in the cockpit to do flight planning while [the Co-pilot] did cockpit checks. Halfway through this; the fueler came in and said the plane wasn't taking fuel. I went out to reset for manual fueling when Operations asked if I would be ready for passengers after fueling. I went back in to finish flight planning and passengers were brought out. The tug left while I was talking to the passengers. I came back to the plane; saw it without the tug; and remembered I did the preflight in the hangar; but forgot that the pins were still in. In our rush; the Co-pilot forgot to do the final walk around. When we got to the Before Start checklist I forgot again that I did not pull the pins after the plane was pulled from the hangar and verified that they were stowed. We were faced with pressure from multiple sources. We were set up to fail with the short show. I wanted the plane out of the hangar for just the reason that bit us. I should have been more assertive. We let ourselves get distracted. We rushed in response to the pressure instead of slowing the pace. We should put safety first; and the completion of the schedule second.

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.