Attrition: I Thought You Lowered The Landing Gear?

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September 21, 2006: Last May, a U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber landed at Diego Garcia without lowering its landing gear. That caused eight million dollars in damage to the aircraft, and $15,000 in damage to the air strip. The cause of the accident was failure of either the pilot or co-pilot to lower the landing gear. How is that possible? Well, such things do happen, although rarely. In this case, both pilots were tired after a long (over ten hours) mission, and were busy with other procedures and paperwork. No one noticed the red warning lights (indicating the landing gear was not down.) It was human error, as is the case with most military and civilian aircraft accidents these days.

 

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