I thought I'd pass along what we witnessed this last Wednesday. It's not every day you about see someone die. Luckily, this one had a happier ending than what it could have been.

This last Wednesday we were coming back from Southern UT (more on that when I get a minute to post some pics) and we stopped to get some fuel. Coming out of the FBO, I saw a Balanca flown by a local guy come in for a touch and go. After a bounce he landed and then was off for another lap around the pattern. By the time we reachedour aircraft at the self-serve pumps, he was about to come over the numbers. That is when my flying buddy said something about his gear not being done. Sure enough. There was no time to warn him so I ran to where I had a good view of his touch down. Shortly I heard the first, and then second sound of the prop striking the asfault, following by the engine going to full throttle. Talk about a low energy go-around. The plane wallowed for a few moments and them reluctanty start to fly in ground effect. Well beyond the end of the runway, it was still very low. It banked to the left and then banked steeply to the right. At that point we thought it was the beginning of a stall and waited to watch it go down. We really thought we were going to watch someone die. But, the plane leveled heading south and slowly started to gain some altitude. It was hard to hear whether the engine was running smoothly or not.

Seeing that he was gaining some altitude, I jumped on the radio to see if he was going to make the field. When I turned on the radio, I caught the last of his transmission. He said that he was returning to runway 26 for an emergency landing. I asked if he was going to make the field and he said he would, after he explained that he had made a "blunder". I told him that we were on the ground and saw the whole thing. We told him we would wait to depart until he got back on the ground. He landed uneventfully and was able to taxi it in to the tie-down area. We met him at the plane. Understandably, he was shaken, but glad to be alive. All three blades were curled over and both inboard edges of the flaps had dragged the runway. He told us that he had just gotten it back from having an annual done on it and this was the first chance he had to fly it. The engine had around 100 hours on it. I'm just glad it turned out the way it did. It could have been a lot worse. I think we left there with a look similar to this.

Where did that occur??? I have a friend with an old Bellanca Viking down south. What a crazy turn of events.. that thing should be in wad somewhere. Glad he was able to pull it off.

I guess these things happen sometimes. There was a hot-shot warbird pilot that flew into an Airshow in Afton, WY a few years back that forgot to put his Seafury gear down and when the prop started to contact the ground, and he realized what he had done, he shoved the power forward and powered out of the crash and flew home. My uncle said that you could see big swaths of asphalt missing in the runway where the prop struck the ground. Sounds far-fetched but apparently a Bellanca can do this manuver as well.

A handful of years ago one of our local Bonanza owners flew around the pattern to warm up the oil for easy draining during the annual later that morning. Turned out to be a very long annual replacing the engine and prop after he landed gear up! I "saved" a really nice Swift from landing gear up when I was operating the unicom at Calexico CA many years ago. The pilot must've been pretty embarrassed as he quickly went through customs and departed, not bothering to come over and say thanks. I did see 3 separate Cessna 210's gear up over the years; never owned one and maybe that's why! Not trying to be smug; as I simply haven't done a gear up landing myself...yet.

My cousin was a USAF crew chief on C-5's for most of his career.
He had a cassette tape of a cockpit recorder of a crew shooting t and g's in a C-5.
The crews would silence the gear alarm sometimes 2-3 times before dropping the gear.

Around the 18th landing...they shutoff the warning like twice and promptly landed gear up.

My cuz said as it was a nite landing it was quite an impressive shower of sparks and parts. They jacked it up, locked enough of the gear down to supprt a nearly empty plane, screwed about a thousand sheets of plywood to the belly, took off the crew door (the impact had caused it to bind in the opening) and one timed down to Marietta with min fuel along the coast at 8000' for a rebuild.
2 old WW2 reserve pilots were contracted to fly the mission. They didn't even bother to preflight .
He said they took a leak, strapped on chutes, fired up the 2 inboard engines and left. Right as they rotated the plywood just peeled off left and right, you could see the plywood still coming off as they went out of sight.

He has a fund of maint nightmare stories too after 30 years. Seats rolling off the tracks, yokes coming off on rotation, etc.

Some years ago we had a light twin kinda do a touch and go.He touched both props and flew away.I heard later that about 6" of each blade was destroyed.The marks are still in the runway,looks like screw threads.I watched an Aztec come within maybe a foot of not having the gear down in time.They popped down and I swear touched the runway at the same time.

Bill

After a perfect landing right down the center line at a local airport with the gear up. the controler asked the guy "didnt you hear me yelling your gear is up on the radio"? the guy, no shit, said "I couldent hear the radio over all the alarms that were going off"! DUUUH