Trinidad TB-21
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Commercial
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 250; Flight Crew Total 1002; Flight Crew Type 20
Confusion; Training / Qualification
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Gear Up Landing
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged
Human Factors
Misinterpreted gear horn for a stuck stall horn. Had not heard the gear up horn before while being checked out in flight. I have experienced a stuck stall horn before due to turbulence in a similar aircraft and assumed it was the same thing. Contributing factors included exchange of controls on base and before landing check. What can be done to prevent a recurrence is further training in unfamiliar aircraft and learning all systems more thoroughly before flight. Also; exchanging controls earlier on before landing; downwind for example; and increased frequency and quantity of before landing checks.
I am in the Professional Pilot Program and this was my first flight in this aircraft. There was a commercially produced checklist for the aircraft; not the standard checklist and I was trying to utilize the checklist on preflight; engine start; and before takeoff but the CFI was rushing or complacent through those checklists and missing items that needed to be checked; I caught some of the missed items. I had been conducting all aircraft control from taxi until the base leg. On the base leg the instructor took control of the aircraft to demonstrate a landing in this particular aircraft. On the final leg of the traffic pattern there was a tone in our headsets and the instructor asked me what the tone was and I replied that I didn't know. The instructor said it sounded like the stall warning; which I had only heard on preflight and while doing slow flight. I told him that we were above stall speed. In this aircraft I had not heard the gear up audio tone. I was listening to the instructor demonstrate and verbalize the maneuver and I didn't realize that the before landing check hadn't been completed. The instructor continued to talk through the landing all the way to the ground with the landing gear up. As we were sliding on the runway I retarded the mixture to cut off; the prop to low RPM and the throttle to idle. I turned off the magnetos and removed the key and turned off the fuel boost pump. The instructor was extremely surprised as to what was happening and took little action. All of the training that I have been through; if you are on the flight controls that individual is responsible for the radios and the checklists. I was not on the flight controls.
TB 21 instructor with a licensed trainee reported a gear up landing with the instructor at the controls. This was the first flight in this type aircraft for the trainee and the instructor interpreted a gear warning horn as a faulty stall warning indication.