A B737-300's right main landing gear indicated unsafe down so the crew cycled the gear three times b...

Attributes
ACN	923633
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	B737-300
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Landing
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	Indicating and Warning - Landing Gear
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250 Flight Crew Type 15000
Person 2
Function	Pilot Flying First Officer
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 240 Flight Crew Type 4000
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

Narrative:

I reviewed the logbook and found a crew had written up a landing gear issue. They had a right gear unsafe light stay on when they put the gear down. They cycled the gear and on the third attempt they were able to get three green down and locked lights. They wrote it up on landing and maintenance cleared the write up. It has been over a week; I can't remember what they did. The aircraft was returned to service. When we put the gear down for landing we had the same problem. I then informed the tower that we had an issue that we needed to work on and asked them to send us somewhere so we could work it out. (I didn't mention to them at that time what the problem was.) I then looked at the fuel we had onboard so as to know how long we had to work on this gear issue and got the QRH out. The first officer continued to fly the aircraft and I worked the problem. We remembered what the other crew did to solve the problem so we cycled the gear three times and were able to get the gear down and locked the green light on the right gear. Even though the QRH does not address cycling the gear; we chose to try this anyway since another crew had success with it. We landed safely; called maintenance; and wrote it in the logbook. They took the aircraft out of service.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A B737-300's right main landing gear indicated unsafe down so the crew cycled the gear three times before getting it down an locked. Apparently the QRH was not consulted.

Narrative: I reviewed the logbook and found a crew had written up a landing gear issue. They had a right Gear Unsafe light stay on when they put the gear down. They cycled the gear and on the third attempt they were able to get three green down and locked lights. They wrote it up on landing and Maintenance cleared the write up. It has been over a week; I can't remember what they did. The aircraft was returned to service. When we put the gear down for landing we had the same problem. I then informed the Tower that we had an issue that we needed to work on and asked them to send us somewhere so we could work it out. (I didn't mention to them at that time what the problem was.) I then looked at the fuel we had onboard so as to know how long we had to work on this gear issue and got the QRH out. The First Officer continued to fly the aircraft and I worked the problem. We remembered what the other crew did to solve the problem so we cycled the gear three times and were able to get the gear down and locked the green light on the right gear. Even though the QRH does not address cycling the gear; we chose to try this anyway since another crew had success with it. We landed safely; called Maintenance; and wrote it in the logbook. They took the aircraft out of service.

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.