Creder
SENIOR MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
- Messages
- 1,935
- Reaction score
- 0
http://www.pakdef.info/pids/paf/jack&jill.html
By Wg Cdr Ahsan Najmi
Published in PAF Flight Safety News Letter - 1992
A/C : Mobile where is No 2 now?
Mobile: He has overshot the base turn … his gears are up.
A/C : Say again?
Mobile: His gears are up.
Everyone: No 2 Go around, Go around. Mobile fire a red … Confirm he has gone around?
Mobile: Negative, he has landed without gears.
Given above is the R/T tape transcript of the final moments of an accident involving a gear-up landing by, who else, Jack of course. The story goes like this:*
After a weapon delivery mission at Thal range, the formation left for Peshawar with 2700 liters of fuel. While crossing Kohat hills, the leader asked the formation to change to airfield frequency. His No.2, Jack, changed the channel selector, but did not change the radio selector from 'Manual' to 'Preset'. As a result, both aircraft remained on different radio channels. Now, immediately after channel change, the leader asked for direct initials to R/W-35 and was cleared by the ATC. But due to cloud patches below, he kept adjusting to locate and line up with the runway. As such, Jack, who did not know that the formation was heading for direct initials, maintained his position at 1000 ft line astern even during the pitch out. Finally, when the leader lowered his landing gears, it suddenly dawned on Jack that they were in the landing pattern and that he had a radio failure. He decided to follow the 'no R/T' procedure. He went around from that approach and overshot the leader on finals, waggling wings. On seeing this, the leader discontinued his approach and attempted to join up on Jack. He was unable to do so because Jack pulled up for a closed traffic pattern and climbed up to circuit attitude. As such, the leader lost him in the cloud patches. By the time Jack reached the Base turn, a large cloud patch had moved to the undershoot of R/W-35. The base of this cloud was reported at 800 to 1000 ft AGL. Jack tried to circumnavigate the cloud patch and ended up overshooting the Base turn. He again initiated a go-around. While he was in the process of raising his gears and flaps, he saw another aircraft on his left side. He got engrossed in attempting a join-up on to him. In this process he did not bring his gear lever to neutral position after gear retraction.
The other aircraft was in fact the leader who had by now joined up on Jack. He used band signals and told Jack to remain in close formation with him. Having ascertained that Jack had radio failure, leader started heading for R/W-17 as it was less cloudy and ground was visible through the patches. Just when he was calling initials for R/W-17, Jack glanced at the fuel gauge, and, to his horror, he saw that only 300 liters of fuel was left. He decided to break off from close formation and land the aircraft as soon as he could. He tried to locate the runway through the cloud patches. He saw that his Radio compass needle was giving a steady heading. He followed the needle and soon descended below the clouds to 500 ft AGL through a clear area. At this point Jack found himself about halt a mile East of the airfield at 500 ft and 500 kph of speed. In a do-or-die attempt to land the aircraft, he lowered the landing gear lever and started to adjust for landing. But, since he had not brought the gear lever to 'Neutral' position after a previous go-around, this time the lever came to 'Neutral' and not 'Down' position. Jack was too engrossed in landing the aircraft. He did not even see the gear safe indications. He made a badly overshooting approach while coming in at 30-40 degree angle to the runway. He flared out 2000 ft down the runway and finally made a gear-up landing 5000 ft down the runway. After the aircraft came to a stop, he evacuated the aircraft safely.
Analysing the series of errors made by Jack, who incidentally had 120 hrs of flying experience on type, the following aspects came to light:*
Radio Failure
On investigation, the aircraft radio and the pilot's helmet were both found serviceable. Initially, he did not move the radio selector from 'Manual' to 'Preset' position and thus created a self-imposed radio failure for himself. Later, he realized that he was receiving calls on 'Guard' channel. He, however, did not make any efforts to communicate on 'Guard' channel, nor did he indicate by hand signals that he was receiving at least some transmissions.
Circuit Pattern after 1st Go-around
After going around from first approach, he made a loose climbing turn to circuit altitude. This was a mistake because he again climbed above the cloud patches and lost visual contact with the runway. He was thus force to make a modified Base turn and in the process he overshot the turn and had to go around again. The best deal under the circumstances would have been to remain below the clouds and fly a low level circuit pattern. Notwithstanding the fact that he had never been shown a low level recovery pattern, it is felt that with his experience, he should have been able to make a circuit pattern at 800 to 1000 ft AGL and land the aircraft.
Gear Lever to 'Neutral'
After the second go-around while Jack was in the process of retracting gears and flaps, he probably got distracted on seeing the leader's aircraft. In the process he forgot to bring his gear lever to 'Neutral' position. This, perhaps, was the key error because when he finally attempted to land, he brought it to 'Neutral' position instead of down. In hind sight, this error perhaps saved a bigger disaster, because the type of overshooting and high speed approach which he finally made would have definitely resulted into a very high speed barrier engagement, and who knows what would have come out of that.
Low Fuel State
Post accident investigation revealed that the aircraft internal fuel gauge was showing 500 liters and the totalizer was at 700 liters. Physical check revealed that fuel tanks had 562 liters of usable fuel. The only possible explanation of Jack seeing 300 liters in the air was that he simply 'misread' the fuel gauge. Prior to that he never made any attempt to communicate his fuel state (Bingo, Minimum etc) to the leader who was in close formation.
Miscellaneous
There were several minor errors which Jack made. Firstly, he displayed poor situational awareness when the leader called direct initials. Jack did not monitor the leader's aircraft deceleration and speed brakes which could tell him that leader's hard turn-about was in fact a pitch out. Secondly, he displayed poor flight discipline by breaking off from close formation without having any idea about his ground position. Lastly, he displayed poor airmanship by relying on Radio Compass for direction finding close to the Beacon where the cone-of-confusion is maximum.
Final Landing
The manner in which Jack attempted the final landing, caught the formation members, ATC and the two Mobile Officers by utter surprise. It was difficult to visualise for Mobile-17 that Jack, who moments ago, was in doge formation with the leader on initials, would suddenly emerge at tree top level from the East of the airfield 2000 ft down the runway at 30 to 40 degree angle. Due to trees and built-up area behind Mobile-17 no aircraft could be seen from the dug-in position of the Mobile Officer. As a result, he could not even fire a red flare to send him around.
A probing look into Jack's past record revealed that he had displayed tendency of wrongly assessing and over-reacting to in-flight emergencies. In this particular case he panicked and made one mistake after the other. He displayed total lack of ability to control the situation when in fact no emergency existed.
A worthwhile lesson from this story would be to look around you. Do you se e any potential Jacks in your squadron?
For those of you who are wondering about the 'Jill' mentioned in the title, well! lets leave that for another time.
P.S. Although this accident was initially classified as 'Major' because the aircraft had recorded maximum positive and negative G's and was declared destroyed yet, after unrelenting and concerted efforts of OUT maintenance men, it has been recovered and is flying again. As for Jack, he migrated to the South Pole and was never heard of again.
Published in PAF Flight Safety News Letter - 1992
