Pilot acting as an observer for a friend experiences unsafe landing gear indication during approach....

Narrative:

I was flying with a friend who had asked me to act as a safety pilot to do his instrument currency flight. He was flying and in contact with approach as we went through the corridor and I was riding along as a passenger. When we got to destination; we got cleared to land straight in on runway 35L. We were slightly to the west of the airport therefore he decided to turn a base leg and come back to the right (east) and then turn to the left on final for straight in on 35L. He put the gear down and started descending and setting up for the landing. As he turned his base leg; the tower called and advised of parallel traffic on 35R. He was looking for the traffic and talking to the tower. As soon as that conversation was over; I interrupted him and pointed out that we did not have 3 green lights on the landing gear yet. He called the tower and advised them that we had a gear issue and we were going around. We asked for a fly by. The tower told us that all they could see was the right main gear half way down but they couldn't see the other two. They asked if we wanted to depart to the west to trouble shoot. We said yes; and then changed our mind and headed back home. He wanted to get the airplane back at its home base if we were going to have to land it gear up. We flew home again through the corridor and also again in contact with approach. Approach was aware of our gear issue as he also told them. We slowed the airplane down into slow flight and stall speed region and tried shaking the airplane and maneuvering the rudders back and forth to get the gear to drop along with the emergency gear extension handle. We ran all the emergency check lists that are listed in chapter 7 for landing gear issues. We were able to get the two main gear down and locked and we got two green lights on the main gear but we were never able to get the nose gear down and locked as it is a much smaller wheel and not heavy enough to counteract the wind resistance as it has to fall forward to lock into place. Therefore; we realized at some point we were going to have to land the airplane with the nose gear up. We came back into our airport to land the airplane. He was still flying as he had been doing the whole time; and I was intermittently helping out with the radios. Approximately 100 ft above the runway; he pulled the mixture to cutoff and shut down the engine and closed the throttle to idle cut off. We landed slowly on the two main gears and got the stall horn just before touching down. It was a perfect slow full stall landing. We held the nose up as long as possible off the ground and then eventually it started to fall and came down on to the ground as we skidded to a stop down the runway. The FAA came out to investigate and took pictures. After putting the airplane up on jacks and testing the landing gear; the maintenance shop now believes that it was the hydraulic pump that failed. The first time that they raised the landing gear; it worked. However; the gear would not extend fully as the pump started to whine and run slower and get hotter after the initial retraction. Can there be some indication or way to check these various mechanical pieces as part of a preflight to indicate wear and tear or when something is close to a failure? I know not all failures can be predicted or some of us would be very rich people.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Pilot acting as an observer for a friend experiences unsafe landing gear indication during approach. Manual gear extension procedures are successful in extending the main gear only and the Bellanca is landed with the nose gear up.

Narrative: I was flying with a friend who had asked me to act as a safety pilot to do his instrument currency flight. He was flying and in contact with Approach as we went through the corridor and I was riding along as a passenger. When we got to destination; we got cleared to land straight in on Runway 35L. We were slightly to the west of the airport therefore he decided to turn a base leg and come back to the right (east) and then turn to the left on final for straight in on 35L. He put the gear down and started descending and setting up for the landing. As he turned his base leg; the Tower called and advised of parallel traffic on 35R. He was looking for the traffic and talking to the Tower. As soon as that conversation was over; I interrupted him and pointed out that we did not have 3 green lights on the landing gear yet. He called the Tower and advised them that we had a gear issue and we were going around. We asked for a fly by. The Tower told us that all they could see was the right main gear half way down but they couldn't see the other two. They asked if we wanted to depart to the west to trouble shoot. We said yes; and then changed our mind and headed back home. He wanted to get the airplane back at its home base if we were going to have to land it gear up. We flew home again through the corridor and also again in contact with Approach. Approach was aware of our gear issue as he also told them. We slowed the airplane down into slow flight and stall speed region and tried shaking the airplane and maneuvering the rudders back and forth to get the gear to drop along with the emergency gear extension handle. We ran all the emergency check lists that are listed in Chapter 7 for landing gear issues. We were able to get the two main gear down and locked and we got two green lights on the main gear but we were never able to get the nose gear down and locked as it is a much smaller wheel and not heavy enough to counteract the wind resistance as it has to fall forward to lock into place. Therefore; we realized at some point we were going to have to land the airplane with the nose gear up. We came back into our airport to land the airplane. He was still flying as he had been doing the whole time; and I was intermittently helping out with the radios. Approximately 100 FT above the runway; he pulled the mixture to cutoff and shut down the engine and closed the throttle to idle cut off. We landed slowly on the two main gears and got the stall horn just before touching down. It was a perfect slow full stall landing. We held the nose up as long as possible off the ground and then eventually it started to fall and came down on to the ground as we skidded to a stop down the runway. The FAA came out to investigate and took pictures. After putting the airplane up on jacks and testing the landing gear; the maintenance shop now believes that it was the hydraulic pump that failed. The first time that they raised the landing gear; it worked. However; the gear would not extend fully as the pump started to whine and run slower and get hotter after the initial retraction. Can there be some indication or way to check these various mechanical pieces as part of a preflight to indicate wear and tear or when something is close to a failure? I know not all failures can be predicted or some of us would be very rich people.

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	927089
Time
Date	201101
Local Time Of Day	0601-1200
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Viking/Turbo-Viking 17-30/31
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Landing
Route In Use	Visual Approach
Flight Plan	None
Component
Aircraft Component	Landing Gear
Person 1
Function	Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 25 Flight Crew Total 880
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical

Pilot acting as an observer for a friend experiences unsafe landing gear indication during approach. Manual gear extension procedures are successful in extending the main gear only and the bellanca is landed with the nose gear up.