Narrative:

We departed late due to a previous maintenance delay at the start of our trip. We took off with the first officer as the flying pilot and immediately upon breaking ground we received an amber 'hydraulic 3A' cas message. It was during a critical phase of flight; so I reached up and cycled the 3A pump off then on. The amber 3A message went away. I called positive rate and the pilot flying called for gear up. Upon selecting the gear handle up we received a red warning 'gear disagree' cas message then a 'nose door open' cas message. We informed departure that we wanted to level off and turn to a 270-degree heading to troubleshoot a gear problem. The QRH was accomplished and the gear was selected down per the QRH. We contacted maintenance control via radio to inform them of our problem and that we did have a gear down and locked indication on all three gear. We were then told to do an overweight landing and advised to keep the vsi at less than 500 FPM descent rate. We then declared an emergency and made an uneventful landing; touching down at a vsi of 200 FPM. The nose wheel gear failed to retract upon selecting the gear to the up position. The 3A hydraulic pump switch had a very loose feel to it; yet all indications were normal prior to take off. Suggest redesign the entire hydraulic/landing gear systems of the crj-200 series aircraft.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: CRJ200 Captain experiences a 'HYD 3A' CAS message upon lift off and cycles the 3A switch causing the message to disappear. Upon gear retraction; the nose gear does not retract. QRH procedures are complied with and flight returns for an overweight landing.

Narrative: We departed late due to a previous maintenance delay at the start of our trip. We took off with the first officer as the flying pilot and immediately upon breaking ground we received an amber 'HYD 3A' CAS message. It was during a critical phase of flight; so I reached up and cycled the 3A pump off then on. The amber 3A message went away. I called positive rate and the pilot flying called for gear up. Upon selecting the gear handle up we received a red warning 'GEAR DISAGREE' CAS message then a 'NOSE DOOR OPEN' CAS message. We informed departure that we wanted to level off and turn to a 270-degree heading to troubleshoot a gear problem. The QRH was accomplished and the gear was selected down per the QRH. We contacted Maintenance Control via radio to inform them of our problem and that we did have a gear down and locked indication on all three gear. We were then told to do an overweight landing and advised to keep the VSI at less than 500 FPM descent rate. We then declared an emergency and made an uneventful landing; touching down at a VSI of 200 FPM. The nose wheel gear failed to retract upon selecting the gear to the up position. The 3A HYD pump switch had a very loose feel to it; yet all indications were normal prior to take off. Suggest redesign the entire HYD/landing gear systems of the CRJ-200 series aircraft.

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.