B1 belly landing.
 

Maybe a bit old,

At about 10 p.m. local time on May 8, 2006, a 7th Bomb Wing B-1B Lancer based at Dyess AFB, Texas, made a wheels-up belly landing on runway 31 at Diego Garcia, skidding 7,500 feet down the runway. The aircraft was landing at the end of an 11 hour ferry mission that started at Andersen AFB, Guam. During the landing, the B-1B caught fire and emergency crews extinguished the flames. The four-person aircrew escaped from the plane through the overhead escape hatch. The aircraft was finally removed from the runway 4 days later. The Air Force Accident Investigation concluded the pilots forgot to lower the landing gear. The USAF estimated the damage to the B-1B at $7.9 million, and the damage to the runway at $14,025. RBRM and those old SEABEES made one tough runway, that's for sure! For those of you who've never seen a $285,000,000.00 bomber on the deck, here she is:


http://www.zianet.com/tedmorris/dg/b-1b_recovery_1.jpg

http://www.zianet.com/tedmorris/dg/b-1b_recovery_9.jpg

http://www.zianet.com/tedmorris/dg/bombers4.html

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Forgot?!:uhoh: I think that a sorry isn't going to be enough...
Another thing: i thought that modern planes tell you when to lower landing gear when your descending...

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

How can you forget to lower your gear? That should be routine, an , something you do without thinking.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

you dont forget...there was something wrong...but the yanks dont want to look stupid..

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

"commence bombing run.."
'roger.. dropping bombs'
"wait! shit... I forgot to open the bay-doors!"

.. :p

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

You're right. We abslutly hate anything that might give the world the impression that we are anything but serious, atriculate, always learning students.

Which is why we invented MTV, MySpace, and the American Secondary Education system.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Even the small planes have a indicator witch tell you to lower your gear...How can you forget that in a $285,000,000.00 bomber?

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Actually not really, when you are landing there is no little indicator that tells you to lower your gear. There are indicators telling you if it is up or down. Pilots have a lot of stuff to do when landing, and the copilot usually calls the checklist to double check, they don't just flip the lever let the gear come down and voila, but it is no excuse, the gear is on the landing checklist. I suppose the pilots didn't follow the checklist and forgot to do it, shit happens, too bad military pilots are the "best".

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

So forgetting to lower your landing gear when landing doesnt?

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

The thing is, everybody knows that americans can be a bit... shall we say, cofused...
But everybody also knows, or is told, that American equipment is the best stuff in the world. So when something like this happens, they try to blaim it on a human error, instead of on the oh so allmighty American technology. :p
I think...

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

So be it. We all screw up. Some people though.......

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

I dont belive it. I think that if they came in thinking they had the gear down, it would be alot worse, as they would come in with the nose up. The rear hits the ground first and the front would slam down very hard. I'd think there would be more damage. If they knew there was a problem they would have come in on a level plane (no pun intended) to minimize that slam. And to all you US haters out there, would't it be less embarrasing to blame the equipment then to say your pilots are idiots?

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

thoes guys hade a 11 hour mision and where almost home, This is a human mistake, but stil.. how can you make such a huge mistake??

oh btw im not saying that Americans are stupit ;)


PS: Im realy suprised that, from my point of vieuw, the (visual) damage is realy small..
(although where still talking about 7.9 million)

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

I think that since apparently they didn't come in nose up, they knew something was wrong like the plane's gear was jammed. Reminds me of the story I've been reading in the book "Submarine!" by Ed. L. Beach about how USS Seawolf proved that 15% of US sub efficiency in the Pacific was lost to faulty torpedoes while the manufacturers all insisted that it was captain/crew error.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Alright I did a little research, it seems this story is true and that those pilots turn off those buzzers a lot because they go off alot when doing low level bombing. I still for the life of me cant figure out how they forgot that!!! Oh well, My buddies let me look around trying to find my sunglasses saying that they havent seen them... Meanwhile they were on my head.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Probaly has something to do with UFO's.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

I bet that Pilot and his First officer that is suppose to double check everything basically lost their career in the military. Lucky no one got hurt or killed. What a waste of tax payer money. I doubt if that pilot could ever pay back that $7.9 million dollars in his lifetime.

Just think of the nick names that crew will get. "No gear down charlie" or "Wheels up Davey" or even "Belly landing Bob".

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

"Oops"

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

or just "fuckwit"

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

I don't think they lost their career. They will probaly be discharged from flying, but might pursue other careers in the AF.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

And can you just imagine what this sort of thing will do to their insurance rating???

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Not even Geico can help these nongs.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Lloyds of London might cover them. Mabey.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Eh, shit happens. We're all human...

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Oh, btw. Here's some cool stuff;
http://www.micom.net/oops/


My fav :D

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

But...Aussies do ???

I'm with stylie's first take: urban legend in the making. And even though he has researched and found some support for the story, I'm still not convinced. These "forgot" things do NOT happen in modern warplanes. Designers and builders and those responsible for the care and keeping of military aircraft know that any annoying feature or system that can be disabled, WILL be disabled. So I doubt seriously that a warning system designed to protect the aircraft and the lives of the crew would be "disable-able". But let's assume landing gear warning was disabled -- then what about altitude/collision warning? I assume that if gear is not engaged those systems are active and would alert crew. ( I'd like to hear from a B-1 pilot right about now..anyone? Bueller? Bueller?)

Besides, aircrews train and train and train until all functions are like breathing, so it's unlikely they "forgot" to enable landing gear. More possible IMO: the systems reporting "okay" for gear down and locked may have failed and given a false positive. The "forgot" story may be what the AF wants out, but IMO it's about as credible as "mass hallucination" as an explanation.

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

they look stupid enough with their unbelieveable excuse :lol:

Re: B1 belly landing.
 

I'll bet such simple mistakes happen all the time. Think about it. It's a simple thing to do but when it gets done so many times a day by so many people... one day someone is bound to forget.

How many people do you know have been in the wrong gear when they started a car? A simple thing anyone should check when they start the car right? But we're all human and make mistakes.

And for my part.. I recall flying a MiG-3 around in IL2 online once. In the air for 30 mins or more on a single flight, plenty of action. Moment I went for my "perfect" landing I crashed and exploded... why? You guessed it, I forgot to lower the gear.