Found this on the USAF website:



Quote:

Probably too low already for manual...

Repair is basically patching it up till its safe to fly around and then get it to seattle or so to do the rest

Well we were showing a guy how to manually lower the gear and lock them down on C-17, and we came to a bad conclusion: It takes way to long to secure the MLG, the stupid troop seats are in the way, and you literally have to rip them from the walls to be able to pin the gear down.

OVERLORD_CHRIS wrote on Feb 10^th, 2009 at 5:54pm:


Seemed to be lots of civilians in that video, sign of the times I suppose.

Matt

PS (Herman Munster does not make a good news caster )

Hagar wrote on Feb 11^th, 2009 at 4:57am:


I wondered that, but it looks like a wheels up landing for two reasons. Firstly, an aircraft of that size and weight suffering a heavy landing that collapses the gear, I would have though that after a they jacked it up, it would be taken away on dolly's and not on it's own gear, major structural damage to the gear bays and surrounding structures would have prevented that . Also if you freeze the video at 26 seconds and then go to full screen mode, you can see that the gear doors are not up. On a C17 they remain open with extended gear. If the gear had collapsed, then I would have though that the doors would either be open or laying flat on the ground on the ground owing to the gear door sweep being a lot lower than the gear hang. They would have no chance to close before the aircraft hit the ground. In fact they would probably be the first thing to hit the ground after (if) the gear collapsed.

Matt

I saw some photos taken of the cockpit and the gear handle is in the up position. Looks like they forgot to put the gear down. When I was flying C-5's at Travis AFB we had a C-5 that did a gear up landing during local flying. The two pilots never flew again. I flew a C-141 back from Spain that had a nose gear break off on landing and it did much damage to the bottom of the plane, crack a main part of the belly. Had to fly back to Charleston at 10,000 unpressurized...

expat wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 2:53am:

Those pictures of the flight deck, i'm not sure if they are floating around the net yet. Even thought I have seen them all, they have not said if:
-there was an IFE and during the Emergency, they over looked it
-Something prevented them from dropping the gear
-There check list was missing a page, and they landed in the dark with what they thought was an up to date book.
-Or just Pilot and Co Pilot error

For there sakes, I hope it was one of the first three, and not the latter. Alot easier to to show that you were following the book page by page, and you did not notice the book missing a page, then to say "I forgot" or "I did not use the check list"

heynav wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 2:31pm:


Interesting set of pictures. Also some valid points in the blog too. GPWS and config alarm, flaps down and close to the ground. Lots of questions and very thin on the answers. I am thinking that as the Air Force are not pushing that it was an IFE now that the pictures are in the public domain that there are a couple of pilots, to use a line from a well know film, who will be flying plane loads of rubber dog turds out of Hong Kong for a living

Matt

expat wrote on Feb 20^th, 2009 at 2:43pm:

Well....now that those are out.

When the flaps are passed a certain point, the voice gives you a count down to the runway, but from the photo as you can see the gear handle on the Co Pilots side, does glow red after a while. After all in that config, the planes computer thinks you are landing, so it would not tell you "pull up, terrain"

Perhaps one gear wouldn't lower and the pilot opted to land with the gear retracted.

Well for you guys who are curious about that C-17 I have some news. I am a SSGT aircraft mechanic deployed to Bagram Airfield. I witnessed the C17 belly in that night and also assited in removing the aircraft from the runway. It has been determined aircrew error. The pilots forgot to put the gear handle down. After we were able to lift the aircraft and put jacks underneath and place the gear handle in the down postion the gear came down and locked. Im not sure the accident report is out yet, but thats the news I have for you.

porky310 wrote on Mar 4^th, 2009 at 9:50pm:

We figured as much, but we figured you would give the aircrew the benefit of the dought.

Thumper04 wrote on Mar 9^th, 2009 at 12:01am:

I agree 100%, just like when they decide to figure out who put the photos on the net before they were released, that person is going to have a lot to answer for.

As for the aircrew thing, I'm usually like you and blame them first, but decided they needed a break this time, as it "could have" been a freak accident, but turned out not to be.