Flight Crew Last 90 Days 104; Flight Crew Total 2070; Flight Crew Type 104
Confusion; Situational Awareness; Training / Qualification
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Maintenance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Issued New Clearance; Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Flight Crew Returned To Departure Airport; General Maintenance Action; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Company Policy; Human Factors; Procedure
Performed normal origination walk around; observed no abnormalities. 4 pins on board and no visible gear pins or red flags observed. Taxied to runway and performed normal take off. At positive rate I called for gear up. Crew noted air noise louder than normal as gear was coming up and noted that nose gear remained in down position. Landing gear warning went off. We looked at the hydraulics page and noted normal indications and quantities. We recycled the gear and problem remained. We advised Departure that we needed to level off at 5000 feet to run a checklist. We leveled off at 5000; put the flaps to 9 and speed 180 while we diagnosed the situation. We ran the QRH and followed the procedures. At this time we decided to return to field as we had three green gear down indication and that the nose gear never went into transit: it always showed DN. We had to burn off fuel so that we did not land over weight. We landed with no issue with the gear on RWY 27R but did get an indication on roll out that Baggage door open. When we returned to the gate maintenance met us and discovered that there was a gear pin left in the nose wheel. I met maintenance at the jet bridge and informed them that we did have 4 pins on board. They inspected the pins on board and notes that one of the pins in the flight deck was an elevator pin that was left by maintenance by mistake. They also noted that the gear pin left in the gear was not visible; it was tucked up in the wheel well. It was also a shorter red flag and not the normal long extended flag that hangs lower like the 3 other gear pins on board.Detected on initial gear up. Nose wheel remained down due to gear pin in gear. We cycled the gear; looked at the hydraulics page on MFD; Leveled at 5000 speed 180 flaps 9 and ran QRHIn training we never actually do a walk around. Our walk around training was a cluttered side show. I had never actually seen a gear pin in any of the gear or out of the holder. There should be at least a half day devoted to hands on walk around in training. The walk around is a barrier which can detect abnormalities or problems on the ground and I feel that this is overlooked in the training of pilots. It would benefit the company to have pilots do a walk around on a real airplane to see the walk around items first hand.
An Embraer-145 First Officer reported that the nose gear would not retract after takeoff. The crew opted to return to the departure airport and discovered that the nose gear pin was still installed.