Narrative:

After receiving vectors for the practice approach into the airport the approach was to be followed by a touch and go. After completion of the practice approach the aircraft touched down on the runway. With all of the three landing gear on the ground and throttles at idle the instructor announced flaps up; the student instead starts to put his hand on the gear handle; as the instructor shouts 'not the gear' and reaches to make sure the gear handle is down the nose of the aircraft drops causing the aircraft props and fuselage to come in contact to the runway. The aircraft continued down the runway about eighty yards before exiting and coming to a stop in the grass off the right hand side of the runway. To prevent this incident from recurring would be to place special and elaborate emphasis on the operation of the flaps/landing gear operations to a student of a complex airplane. Many students complete their single engine training in a cessna 152 and 172 and become tuned to retracting the flaps by moving a lever up located on the instrument panel. This results in a negative transfer over to an aircraft such as a piper seminole that has a flap lever located between the two front seats so without thinking the student may inadvertently raise the gear handle instead of the flap lever. The most [fool] proof solution would be to eliminate touch and go operations of a complex airplane by doing stop and goes or taxi backs which will allow for nothing to be touched inside the aircraft until it has become to full stop. Another recommendation would be to have the student only have their hands on the control yoke and throttles and have the instructor control the retraction of the flaps while doing touch and goes.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Piper Seminole instructor reported his student retracted the gear on the runway during a touch and go maneuver; resulting in aircraft damage and a runway excursion.

Narrative: After receiving vectors for the practice approach into the airport the approach was to be followed by a touch and go. After completion of the practice approach the aircraft touched down on the runway. With all of the three landing gear on the ground and throttles at idle the instructor announced flaps up; the student instead starts to put his hand on the gear handle; as the instructor shouts 'not the gear' and reaches to make sure the gear handle is down the nose of the aircraft drops causing the aircraft props and fuselage to come in contact to the runway. The aircraft continued down the runway about eighty yards before exiting and coming to a stop in the grass off the right hand side of the runway. To prevent this incident from recurring would be to place special and elaborate emphasis on the operation of the flaps/landing gear operations to a student of a complex airplane. Many students complete their single engine training in a Cessna 152 and 172 and become tuned to retracting the flaps by moving a lever up located on the instrument panel. This results in a negative transfer over to an aircraft such as a Piper Seminole that has a flap lever located between the two front seats so without thinking the student may inadvertently raise the gear handle instead of the flap lever. The most [fool] proof solution would be to eliminate touch and go operations of a complex airplane by doing stop and goes or taxi backs which will allow for nothing to be touched inside the aircraft until it has become to full stop. Another recommendation would be to have the student only have their hands on the control yoke and throttles and have the instructor control the retraction of the flaps while doing touch and goes.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.