A CE650's landing gear lever failed to move after takeoff so the crew returned to land. Believing th...

Narrative:

We departed and after establishing a positive rate of climb the pilot flying requested gear up. The gear lever would not move and after consulting the abnormal/emergency check list we advised ATC that we wanted to return to the departure airport and no assistance was requested. We landed without further incident and clear of the runway we parked and requested to review our situation. We contacted our company maintenance personnel and informed him of the problem. After several minutes of discussion with maintenance and between ourselves we believed the problem to be an intermittent stuck micro switch on the gear. We believed that the problem was intermittent and the gear would perform properly. Advising ATC that we would like to depart and remain in the pattern and probably pick up our IFR to our destination; they cleared us for takeoff. On subsequent departure the gear lever again would not move and we returned again and after consulting our maintenance we had the aircraft repaired at a local repair station. The problem was the gear retraction solenoid was defective. In retrospect I don't believe we did anything wrong as we consulted maintenance and felt the problem was solved and the second takeoff presented no problem if the gear would not retract; i.e. The aircraft was airworthy. Should we have had the aircraft inspected before the second takeoff; perhaps; but considering the weather; aircraft performance; and discussion with maintenance we felt we took the correct action.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A CE650's landing gear lever failed to move after takeoff so the crew returned to land. Believing the problem was intermittent they departed a second time only to return for the same problem. After the second return Maintenance determined the gear retraction solenoid failed.

Narrative: We departed and after establishing a positive rate of climb the pilot flying requested gear up. The gear lever would not move and after consulting the abnormal/emergency check list we advised ATC that we wanted to return to the departure airport and no assistance was requested. We landed without further incident and clear of the runway we parked and requested to review our situation. We contacted our Company Maintenance personnel and informed him of the problem. After several minutes of discussion with Maintenance and between ourselves we believed the problem to be an intermittent stuck micro switch on the gear. We believed that the problem was intermittent and the gear would perform properly. Advising ATC that we would like to depart and remain in the pattern and probably pick up our IFR to our destination; they cleared us for takeoff. On subsequent departure the gear lever again would not move and we returned again and after consulting our Maintenance we had the aircraft repaired at a local repair station. The problem was the gear retraction solenoid was defective. In retrospect I don't believe we did anything wrong as we consulted Maintenance and felt the problem was solved and the second takeoff presented no problem if the gear would not retract; i.e. the aircraft was airworthy. Should we have had the aircraft inspected before the second takeoff; perhaps; but considering the weather; aircraft performance; and discussion with Maintenance we felt we took the correct action.

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.

Attributes
ACN	921923
Time
Date	201012
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Citation III VI VII (C650)
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Initial Climb
Route In Use	Vectors
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Gear Extend/Retract Mechanism
Person 1
Function	Pilot Not Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Flight Instructor
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 50 Flight Crew Total 7700 Flight Crew Type 2500
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Procedural Maintenance

A CE650's landing gear lever failed to move after takeoff so the crew returned to land. Believing the problem was intermittent they departed a second time only to return for the same problem. After the second return maintenance determined the gear retraction solenoid failed.