As always when posting videos I want to state that I did the best search I could on this site and did not come up with any results regarding this and I was not able to get my questions answered in the comments section of this video.

First off let me say im NOT going to be a pretend MD-10 pilot, but I simply wanted to share this video because regardless of what was going on here, that is some AWESOME footage of a heavy approaching with the gear up, then excellent footage of the gear finally coming down. SO does anyone have any idea what was going on here? Obviously in normal conditions such an aircraft should not get this low and close to the runway without retracting its gear. Since I do find it hard to believe that commercial pilots could forget to put the gear down especially with all the checklists and cockpit warnings, would it be safe to assume that this aircraft was having some issues? Im not familiar with the gear cycling on the DC-10 aircraft, but does it seem like they went down and the doors went up at the correct speed? The main doors went up really slow. Maybe hydraulic issues of some sort? I also was looking at the flaps and early in the video it almost appears that they are not fully extended, but I have no clue if thats true or not. I just know that I have seen DC-10's with flaps that hang extremely low, and those didnt seem to be.

Also, mods feel free to delete this video if it is a repost. Thanks

At any rate, enjoy the video, its the first time I saw it and its pretty cool to watch. Dont forget to click HD  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDgvWa-EbbE

[Edited 2013-01-28 18:04:35]

Perhaps the PF used to be a Space Shuttle commander?  

Seriously, intriguing video. Perhaps the reason for the gear doors closing slowly is because of the unusual airflow (full flaps) vs. extension when the flaps are typically (roughly) half-extended?

Quoting TrnsWrld (Thread starter): SO does anyone have any idea what was going on here?

I'm going to guess a hydraulic problem...that gear comes down *very* slowly, and the doors move very slowly. It looks like they don't have adequate hydraulic power. They may have been using what they had to get the flaps out and the speed down and delaying the gear until they got the flaps into landing configuration.

Tom.

I'm not sure what Fed Ex's SOP's are for dropping the gear.. but i do know that at ORD, many pilots opt to drop the gear a heck of a lot sooner than normal to help maintain airspeed (ie - keep it low/ help them slow down). For some reason I seem to think that most airlines typically require gear down 3 miles out unless conditions otherwise limit??

Quoting tdscanuck (Reply 2): I'm going to guess a hydraulic problem...that gear comes down *very* slowly, and the doors move very slowly. It looks like they don't have adequate hydraulic power. They may have been using what they had to get the flaps out and the speed down and delaying the gear until they got the flaps into landing configuration.

It's possible that a last-minute problem developed, although I would think they would have opted for a missed approach rather than trust the gear dropping so late in the approach..

If they were having previously known hydraulic issues, they would have been configured miles out.

Quoting usxguy (Reply 3): For some reason I seem to think that most airlines typically require gear down 3 miles out unless conditions otherwise limit??

I know that WN and US require an approach be "stabilized" at 1000ft AGL, so I'd assume that's the point where you're in the final landing configuration at the proper airspeed.

Stablized at 500' if it's VMC is also common across the industry, but I don't know what FEDEX's criteria is. It's not simply a hydraulic problem as someone else here pointed out you would be configured sooner. Also, if you thought you only had limited Hydraulics (i.e. some sort of leak) the first thing you would do is put the gear down. An airplane will land with no flaps, they just need a long enough runway.

The only scenario I can think of is if they got a bad gear or door indication. The procedure would be to re-cyle the gear...so if you put the gear down at the normal spot (1500' or so) got a red light ...you would put the gear up...then put it back down. Since it's VMC you continue down the approach path, once the gear competes the cycle, you look, 3 green you land...no 3 green you go-around.

You're all overreacting. This is a fairly normal gear extension sequence. I timed it; the gear transit time on this MD-10-10 is LESS TIME than the A330 takes in videos readily available on youtube.
I do agree that they're being dropped later than expected. I also seem to notice flaps transition from about 25 or so to full down.
My guess is that ATC needed them to speed things up, so they stayed clean for a while. Perhaps an emergency inbound directly behind FedEx?

This is all over other forums, must have been around for a while. from what i can see nothing wrong. Gear down and Locked before the fence, Fuel saver.

Its indeed a bit late, in VFR we mostly make sure to be in landing configuration when turning final (or atleast 500 ft. AGL) but i could imagine this Fedex plane having a good reason for not extanding the gear just before touchdown.. + the zoomlens makes it look much closer to the ground than the plane actually is..

1-Indeed something like an emergency behind them, with ATC forcing them to hurry up.The extra drag created by the landing gear could really slow things down
2-Cost saving measures: more drag=more thrust or higher AOA needed to compensate it: is more fuel needed
3-They had a bussy last phase of the flight and really just got to the landing gear 30 sec. before touch down.

Could name some more reasons, and although its unusuall, this is not that odd!

Quoting TrnsWrld (Thread starter): Since I do find it hard to believe that commercial pilots could forget to put the gear down especially with all the checklists and cockpit warnings, would it be safe to assume that this aircraft was having some issues?

There have actually been a few gear-up landings done on healthy aircraft, by otherwise competent crews over the decades. These things happen. I don't know how, but they do...

Quoting tdscanuck (Reply 2): I'm going to guess a hydraulic problem...that gear comes down *very* slowly, and the doors move very slowly. It looks like they don't have adequate hydraulic power. They may have been using what they had to get the flaps out and the speed down and delaying the gear until they got the flaps into landing configuration.

Completely off the cuff guesswork here... But with a relatively high Vapp, and (sounds like anyway) a decent crosswind component, could a flight crew elect to withhold gear ext on the basis of wanting to have less to stick out into the wind, and make the approach easier? I wouldn't suggest that would be any company's SOP, but perhaps a shortcut?

Quoting AA737-823 (Reply 6): My guess is that ATC needed them to speed things up, so they stayed clean for a while. Perhaps an emergency inbound directly behind FedEx?

That may be possible, yes. But just a WAG here, when an emergency inbound is headed to a given RWY, doesn't ATC (or tower at any rate) clear traffic ahead & behind?

Different airlines may have different policies for a stabilised approach. At mine on my fleet, a go-around is mandatory if we are not in full landing configuration by 1000ft. We aim to be fully configured by 1500ft. A little more conservative than most but configuring slightly lower really doesn't save that much time or fuel in the big scheme of things compared to the increased safety factor.

Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 9): That may be possible, yes. But just a WAG here, when an emergency inbound is headed to a given RWY, doesn't ATC (or tower at any rate) clear traffic ahead & behind?

That was my understanding as landing or departing aircraft could suffer a tyre burst or similar which could block the runway.

Quoting TrnsWrld (Thread starter): would it be safe to assume that this aircraft was having some issues?

no, not at all

Quoting Western727 (Reply 1): Perhaps the reason for the gear doors closing slowly is because of the unusual airflow (full flaps)

naw, any flap setting greater than 28 would have would have given them the gear warning horn

Quoting usxguy (Reply 3): what Fed Ex's SOP's are for dropping the gear..

to be stabilized by 500' VFR

Quoting PassedV1 (Reply 5): Stablized at 500' if it's VMC is also common across the industry, but I don't know what FEDEX's

same.
Again folks everyone seems to want to find some emergency or ATC directed reason but, regardless of that, the stab. app at 500' rules. Any emerg. would have resulted in a miss. I think the reason is simple and not any of the reasons sited here but that's all i'm saying. You can be sure flt mgt has seen it.

This looks like a normal approach (not normal for the gear to not be down obviously...) and normal gear extension speed. Gear doors don't close until 00:36, and the bird touches down at 00:52 that's 16 seconds between the end of the gear extension cycle, and touch down. Even on a 3 degree glide slope at a 150 knots 3 degree glide slope would be about 750 fpm. So 16 seconds at 750 fpm (this descent rate doesn't even include the flare...). This comes out to 200' AGL at MOST when the gear finished the extension cycle. And at MOST he started his gear extension at 00:13 so you're looking at 487.5 feet or roughly 500' AGL at MOST. Add in a head wind or being lighter with a slower approach speed, and you get slower than 150 knots ground speed you're going to do less than 750 fpm on a 3 degree glide slope. So at BEST we're looking at a gear extension at 500' AGL. Most likely lower just by analyzing the numbers.

To be stabilized by 500' AGL they would have to extend gear sooner to be down and locked BY 500' and not past that. Past that should warrant a go around. I'm sure these pilots were talked to by someone at the company. If not, regardless, this is not a very normal turn of events in this video...

Brought to you by your friendly arm chair pilot.

AAF

[Edited 2013-01-29 06:39:05]

[Edited 2013-01-29 06:40:13]

Not sure what happened

1. Cycling the gear on short final. No, if they had a gear problem on final, they would have broken off approach
2. If the gear had not dropped, was there time to spool up and go around? Probably, but I certainly would not want to be in that position.
3. Seems like a cowboy type move. If so, very unprofessional, this isn't an airshow.

Quoting AA737-823 (Reply 6): You're all overreacting. This is a fairly normal gear extension sequence

I dont think anyone is overreacting by any means. We are all just discussing the possibilities as to why the landing gear were lowered so late in the approach. Seems like some pretty good reasons have been discussed so far and regardless of what some people say this is not a normal gear extension process. I agree with you as well that you can actually see the flaps being lowered as well just before the gear come down. Whether it be the pilots just trying to keep speeds up for whatever reason, or some sort of mechanical issue its for sure interesting to see. And great footage as well! Looks awesome!

Quoting strangr (Reply 7): This is all over other forums, must have been around for a while. from what i can see nothing wrong. Gear down and Locked before the fence, Fuel saver.

According to the info on the video its actually not that old. If I remember correctly sometime in the last few months of 2012. I cant imagine any pilots jeopordizing safety just to save their company a little fuel. if thats the case they must really love their company.



I know this is not some earth shattering video, but just something to discuss as I thought it was a little interesting. I grew up just a couple miles east of ORD under the 27R approach and down the street from the outter marker. 99% of the inbound aircraft dropped their landing gear at this point which was a few miles out. I timed it in this video and from the time the landing gear was 100% extended and the doors were up there was only 17 seconds from that time until the tires hit the pavement. Lastly, someone stated that they think it was the cameras zoom that made it seem like the aircraft was closer that it really was. Thats not true at all. The aircraft was on short final regardless if the camera had a telescope mounted on it or no zoom capabilities at all   They photographer was standing not far off from the end of the runway. Anyway, bad ass video!!

Quoting TrnsWrld (Reply 15): I dont think anyone is overreacting by any means. We are all just discussing the possibilities as to why the landing gear were lowered so late in the approach.

Well though it is a little amusing that everyone went straight to the extreme conclusions of emergency, fuel savings, ATC command, etc when the obvious, having been there a few decades, is they were late because of their own choosing. That's it and yes I'm sure flt mgt was involved afterwards. There was no logical reason for it. I can guarantee they were not trying to save fuel. No abnormal such as hydraulics would suggest you just wag it and continue, there may and probably will other conditions that will apply to the abnormal that need to be addressed. the only reason to wag it and continue is if you were on fire.

Superficially it seemed there was time that if the gear had not gotten down the plane could have gone around. At 500 ft or lower a go around is possible.

With the flaps at 28 or 40 they should have gotten a gear warning anyways I think on the MD-80? Also wouldn't there be a FITNL warning from the GPWS at some point?

Apparently healthy planes do sometimes land gear up I'm actually curious what type of issues cause that given the above.

Quoting CosmicCruiser (Reply 16): Well though it is a little amusing that everyone went straight to the extreme conclusions of emergency, fuel savings, ATC command, etc when the obvious, having been there a few decades, is they were late because of their own choosing. That's it and yes I'm sure flt mgt was involved afterwards. There was no logical reason for it. I can guarantee they were not trying to save fuel. No abnormal such as hydraulics would suggest you just wag it and continue, there may and probably will other conditions that will apply to the abnormal that need to be addressed. the only reason to wag it and continue is if you were on fire.

Oh, come on, CC. Why take the word of an experienced Captain (you) who actually flew those birds? It's much more fun to speculate!

:D

Perhaps they are troll pilots who simply wanted to get everyone here riled up?     

Don't freight guys have a reputation for being of a different breed? Perhaps a conscious, hot shot decision. Against better judgement, of course.

Personally I enjoy the video. It gives a nice, clear and detailed view of gear extension in flight.   

[Edited 2013-01-29 08:50:48]

Quoting Darksnowynight (Reply 9): That may be possible, yes. But just a WAG here, when an emergency inbound is headed to a given RWY, doesn't ATC (or tower at any rate) clear traffic ahead & behind?

Traffic ahead isn't cleared, that would just be a waste of space and capacity. If an emergency is in some condition that requires a higher approach speed (flap failure etc) then we'll give an extra mile or two in front of him but otherwise its normal. At my airport, the city considers the runway closed behind an emergency aircraft and a vehicle will sweep the runway behind him to check for FOD before releasing it back to us.

A little close to the ground for my comfort level. Our company SOP, configured for landing by 1000 feet AGL. On speed and stable by 500 feet AGL.
I won't speculate as to what the situation was but the gear extension appeared normal rate.
Personally I have missed the 1000 ft mark a couple times due to extended ATC vectoring where they slowed us to typical final approach speeds on downwind and base segments. Many aircraft minimum speeds permit flying at slower speeds with approach flaps set and gear up. It is easy to get lulled into thinking in the back of a persons mind that the gear is down as you roll out on final and intercept the glidslope. This is further compounded if an ATC assigned glideslope intercept is higher than normal.

Quoting PassedV1 (Reply 5): The only scenario I can think of is if they got a bad gear or door indication. The procedure would be to re-cyle the gear...so if you put the gear down at the normal spot (1500' or so) got a red light ...you would put the gear up...then put it back down. Since it's VMC you continue down the approach path, once the gear competes the cycle, you look, 3 green you land...no 3 green you go-around.

That was my thought. They got a bad gear indication, and while one is already going through the go-around in his mind, the other is re-cycling the gear. They get three greens and go back to plan A ... land.

Quoting MauriceB (Reply 8): Its indeed a bit late, in VFR we mostly make sure to be in landing configuration when turning final (or atleast 500 ft. AGL)

When I was an active CFI, our normal procedures were gear down while midfield on the downwind leg, or if not doing a normal traffic pattern, we'd still drop it at least two to three miles out. Our max gear extension speed was higher than max flaps extended speed, so dropping the gear helped us slow it down anyway.

In IFR, it was gear down when intercepting the glide-slope or when at the FAF for non-precision approaches.

As for the video, I'm not an expert on airlines SOP, so I have no idea what's going on here.

Always nice having CC here in these kinds of threads. It is fun to speculate by we really don't know what the reason for this was. But I have a question, how did management find out about it? Is there something on the aircraft that alerts the company if the gear horn did go off? Or was it solely because of the video?

Quoting FlyHossD (Reply 18): Why take the word of an experienced Captain (you) who actually flew those birds? It's much more fun to speculate!

  

That made my day!!

Quoting wagz (Reply 20): At my airport, the city considers the runway closed behind an emergency aircraft and a vehicle will sweep the runway behind him to check for FOD before releasing it back to us.

That's just common practice almost everywhere. My own rule of thumb depending on the type of emergency was to give the tower nothing less than 10 NM for the next arrival.

Quoting 71Zulu (Reply 24): But I have a question, how did management find out about it? Is there something on the aircraft that alerts the company if the gear horn did go off? Or was it solely because of the video?

In today's information age, it doesn't take long for something to become worldwide knowledge. It may well have been this video that alerted management ... how else would they have found out?

That being said though, where I fly, we have a safety program being run by the union, (NOT the airline, and NOT Transport Canada) where information from the FDR is recorded on a card. A union rep, retrieves those cards from aircraft as they cycle through YYZ. They are looking for unsafe trends, or common occurrences where SOPs are not followed.

Those trends are published to all pilots as a warning. It is interesting to note that ONLY one man in the union (known as The Gatekeeper) knows on what flight these occurrences occur.

If something very "odd" is noticed on one particular flight, the gatekeeper will contact the Captain and ask his input. Not to point fingers, but to find out how that "oddity" occurred. For example, when I was on the A320, I used to let the F/O taxi the aircraft when it was his leg. This was against our SOPs, but as a training Captain, when surface conditions permitted, I saw the sense of accomplishment it gave and when I saw them as Captain candidates, they taxied better as they had done it before. I was reminded by the Gatekeeper that it is not allowed, and although he cant tell me not to do it, he did mention how the outcome would be should we ever have an incident with the F/O's hand on the tiller!

In this incident, the gear was selected down at 0:10 of the video, and landed at 0:51. That is about 500' AGL, and while a little tight, it does appear to within SOPs. I am guessing though, if it had happened where I fly, the Captain would have got a call from The Gatekeeper.

Quoting AA737-823 (Reply 6): You're all overreacting. This is a fairly normal gear extension sequence. I timed it; the gear transit time on this MD-10-10 is LESS TIME than the A330 takes in videos readily available on youtube.

It's perfectly reasonable to pose the questions. I watch aircraft come for long periods, and have never seen this. Thus, it looks unusual to me, and no doubt many others. Gear is always down by the bird is properly visible in my limited viewing experience. That said, I of course understand fully that things may happen differently in certain circumstances, and that I haven't even come close to seeing it all, but is looks unusual to the majority of observers, which is why the issue is being discussed. Asking about it because it seems unusual is not to claim the greater knowledge of those who fly these machines.

Gear extension appears normal. Yeah, a bit late to put the gear down. I have seen later gear extensions before. Could be a million reasons why they did this. I doubt they forgot.

Quoting longhauler (Reply 22): They got a bad gear indication, and while one is already going through the go-around in his mind, the other is re-cycling the gear. They get three greens and go back to plan A ... land.

In our case we would/should go around with a bad indication.

Quoting 71Zulu (Reply 24): how did management find out about it?

What Longhauler said sums it up. And I'm sure there have been conversations but to answer your question the vid went viral, fedex saw it quickly. With all the cameras pointing at jets these days you "ain't" getting away with "nuttin"

Quoting longhauler (Reply 26): In this incident, the gear was selected down at 0:10 of the video, and landed at 0:51. That is about 500' AGL

Yeah, but they wouldn't have had 3 greens at 500' AGL.

Quoting RussianJet (Reply 27): I watch aircraft come for long periods, and have never seen this. Thus, it looks unusual to me, and no doubt many others.

The comment you are quoting is referring to the speed at which the gear deployed, and not the incident itself.

Quoting Silver1SWA (Reply 19): Don't freight guys have a reputation for being of a different breed? Perhaps a conscious, hot shot decision. Against better judgement, of course.

Yeah, it's like a scene straight from Air America every night at airports like MEM and SDF.

Quoting 71Zulu (Reply 24): But I have a question, how did management find out about it? Is there something on the aircraft that alerts the company if the gear horn did go off?

No, but I'm sure they would love that. Oh I can see it now, the memos from the micromanagers stuck behind a desk on how to fly an airplane just piling up in my inbox.

What about a simple solution... captain and first officer had a bet or a dare  

Quoting tp1040 (Reply 14): 1. Cycling the gear on short final. No, if they had a gear problem on final, they would have broken off approach 2. If the gear had not dropped, was there time to spool up and go around? Probably, but I certainly would not want to be in that position. 3. Seems like a cowboy type move. If so, very unprofessional, this isn't an airshow.

Why? It's VFR with one guy flying the airplane and one guy working the gear...what is so "cowboy" about that. A go-around at ORD can create a whole host of problems onto itself. What was their fuel state? Unsafe gear indications happen fairly regularly. Most times, it is cured when the gear is recycled. The gear was down for sure by 200'...they had plenty of room to go around the whole time. I'm not necessarilly saying it would be the best decision, but I think it would be a reasonable decision. Hardly a "cowboy" move.

Yee hah!

I've watched the clip and ask myself "what's the issue?"

It seems a perfectly normal, stabilised approach, albeit with a late gear extension. I would bet my last dime on there not having been any problem.

There can be all kinds of reasons or explanations for "keeping the speed up" on final.

And heaven forbid, the Pilot Flying might even be enjoying the opportunity to actually fly the beast manually and have a little bit of license whilst enjoying it.  

Sadly, in today's viral internet society, the slightest deviation from the norm comes under quite ridiculous scrutiny.

Rgds

[Edited 2013-01-29 14:08:38]

Quoting BlueShamu330s (Reply 34): There can be all kinds of reasons or explanations for "keeping the speed up" on final.

That can never supersede being stable at 500'. Guaranteed bust on a line check.

Quoting PassedV1 (Reply 33): that. A go-around at ORD can create a whole host of problems onto itself. What was their fuel state? Unsafe gear indications happen fairly regularly. Most times, it is cured when the gear is recycled.

There's more than one indication on the MD-10 or -11 and any green indicator is good enough so a bad indication means you have it twice so go-around.

Quoting BlueShamu330s (Reply 34): Sadly, in today's viral internet society, the slightest deviation from the norm comes under quite ridiculous scrutiny.

Which is funny because you know if the crew of this plane sat down in a room with a few dozen anetters to talk about it, there would be a simple explanation about it then a few hours of about a million questions about airplanes and flying. It would be a dream come true to most of them to be able to talk to a couple wide body drivers from one of the largest airlines in the world!

With the anonymity of armchair captaining on the internet though, the gloves are off for some. Not necessarily in this case, just an observation of anet forums sometimes.  

Quoting BlueShamu330s (Reply 34): I've watched the clip and ask myself "what's the issue?" It seems a perfectly normal, stabilised approach, albeit with a late gear extension

Ummmm yeah we know. Thats what the point of this thread was. Its what seems to be a normal approach with amazing videography with the exception of the obvious....very late landing gear extension. No one in this thread is making it out to be more than it is just a sweet video to watch and a discussion of things that may have led up to the landing gear finally being fully down only 17 seconds before touching down. How you can say "whats the issue" watching a heavy on short final with no landing gear down is beyond me.
I have flown on easily hundreds commercial flights, spent 13 years living next to the 27R outter marker at ORD and have been spotting aircraft since before I can remember and have never once seen a commercial aircraft that close to touch down with no gear down. Again, I dont want to seem over dramatic, but its funny how there are always people that say "whats the issue", or "looks normal to me" etc etc. Yeah lol, looks normal except for several tons of landing gear equipment missing from the underside of the plane hahaha I keep watching that video and man that MD10 looks bad ass coming in like that!  

Actually, this clip made in to another website around a month ago. The clip being made public (according to FDX pilots) resulted in discipline to the crew after FDX investigated it. Consensus from the professional pilots on that board was that stable approach criteria had been violated. I have no direct knowledge of the incident or consequences, but am reporting what I read.

Quoting PassedV1 (Reply 5): Also, if you thought you only had limited Hydraulics (i.e. some sort of leak) the first thing you would do is put the gear down.

I´m not a pilot, but this is b-sh*t.
what do they have the alternate gear extension system for?

I know of a flight that had said problem (loss of one hydraulic system) and the pilots did exactly what you said. they put the gear down just before the reservoir was empty. obviously with the gear down too early you will have some fuel problems later, so they diverted. the aircraft would have made it safely to the home base, even with one hydraulic system lost, but not with the gear extended...
best thing:
captain said he doesn't trust the alternate gear extension system. WTF?
these guys get a lot of money to freak out, don´t trust their aircraft and dump a lot more money?


to topic: gear indeed comes down too slow. it might be within the limits as said above, but definitely slower than usual.
maybe loss of one or more EDP? gear doors open normally but then maybe the flow rate is to weak to keep the usual sequence speed...
but this does not explain the late extension. as said above one would set landing configuration way earlier with hydraulic trouble (though IMHO gear down is not the first thing to do)

Quoting horstroad (Reply 39): gear indeed comes down too slow.

don't think so

Quoting horstroad (Reply 39): but definitely slower than usual.

nope

Quoting horstroad (Reply 39): maybe loss of one or more EDP?

nope. come on folks, if you want to change the thread to how do you cope with a single hyd sys failure cool let's talk but this wasn't the case.

I've definitely heard ORD ask airplanes to keep their speed up when spacing gets tight. The plane is landing near twilight which is a busy time at ORD and airplanes are sequenced tightly. They could have had someone relatively close behind and ATC asked for them to keep the speed up or stay above 170 knots, etc. If they kept the speed up, and delayed flaps and gear until they were slowed, you could end up with a relatively late extension.

Looks like MD88captain pretty much summed it up, but for those (including myself) who said it looks like the gear and doors operated too slow. Well I watched some vids on YouTube of DC10 gear swing tests and sure enough it's 100% normal like CosmicCruiser stated.

I just keep watching the video over and over again and telling myself that airplanes are a pretty thing when in flight, w/o all the messy stuff hanging out and about.

and that timing was impeccable.

that's all I have on that.

Quoting TrnsWrld (Reply 42): Well I watched some vids on YouTube of DC10 gear swing tests and sure enough it's 100% normal like CosmicCruiser stated.

A word of caution: Gear swings in hangars are performed without assistance of engine-driven hydraulic pumps and are therefore usually slower than they are during flight. But yes, I agree that the gear doesn't appear to take an unreasonable amount of time to extend in this video.

Looks like a simple case of a non-stable approach (by company criteria), but I'm betting the PF had his finger hovering over the TOGA switch just in case a light failed to turn green at the last moment.

Could one of the engines be failed? Waiting to put the gear down until the landing is assured...that is what I am being taught in multiengine flight course...but I'm not sure how that applies to Transport and part 121 ops.

ATC often ask us for speeds on finals which we are unable to comply with without breaking our company's stabilised approach criteria. Most of us just agree yet do our own thing in order not to bust SOPs. Every now and then we get a pilot who tries to comply and they end up putting gear and flaps too late because the speed ATC asked for was above the flap limit speed. SOPs get broken and the crew may get a slap on the wrist from the company. As others have said, nothing to do with hydraulic systems, saving fuel etc etc. Just one of those things!

No engine is failed. This video shows a healthy aircraft on a normal approach with a late configuration change.

121 engine out ops would normally put the gear out at glide slope intercept. There is no engine out scenario in which you hold the gear to the last possible second (on purpose). The landing is assured concept does apply. The difference is that landing is assured intercepting the glide slope.

Quoting web500sjc (Reply 45): Waiting to put the gear down until the landing is assured.

As Md88Captain said, an eng out app in a MD-10/11 is just a normal app. nothing diff except add 5 kts to Vapp.

Quoting horstroad (Reply 39): I´m not a pilot, but this is b-sh*t. what do they have the alternate gear extension system for? I know of a flight that had said problem (loss of one hydraulic system) and the pilots did exactly what you said. they put the gear down just before the reservoir was empty. obviously with the gear down too early you will have some fuel problems later, so they diverted. the aircraft would have made it safely to the home base, even with one hydraulic system lost, but not with the gear extended... best thing: captain said he doesn't trust the alternate gear extension system. WTF? these guys get a lot of money to freak out, don´t trust their aircraft and dump a lot more money?

I wasn't going to respond to this...I sholdn't respond to this...but I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you have an open mind, and this isn't just some ignorant rant.

I don't know what the alternate extension system on the MD-10 is, but in general, the alternte gear extension systems fall into A or B or a combination of A and B.

A. Pull a handle or cable on the flight deck that releases the uplocks on the gear that lets a combination of gravity and the aircraft slip-stream.

and/or

B. Pump a handle on the flight decks that requires somewhere between 100-1000 pumps to get the gear down and locked.

A does not always work, did they lube up all the grease points the way they were supposed to. Maybe they took some fod in the gear and if you can't get the gear down using 3,000 psi, you surely won't just relying on gravity. B does not work if you are out of Hydraulic Fluid.

Just to give you an idea of how "reliable" the alternate extension system is, If it doesn't work the Boeing flight manual says to gently slip the airplane in a banked turn to use the g's and the side loads to get the gear down.

Still not convinced the Alternate Extension system is not something to be relied on...watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfeInkYrShk

If you are resorting to using the alternate gear extension system...you are having a very bad day.

I stated to put the gear down if you think you are losing your Hydraulics because all of the other systems that work off of Hydraulics have backups or are not needed. If you are leaking fluid or just down to the pressure in the accumulators you only have so many more shots of Hydraulic power.

I hate to break the news to you, but to your pilots...your departure time and destination are "advisory" as far as we're concerned. If everythig isn't ready at departure time we don't think twice about not going...If it becomes unsafe to continue to point B then we don't. We're sorry you're missing your connection but it's not somethig we fret about. We were going to change those tires...aaaahhhh but since the guy in 16B has a tight connection...

And no...none of us trust the Alternate Gear Extension System on any airplane. What you are saying is that you want us to trust a system on an airplane, that just had the primary system with multiple redundencies fail, to trust another system that hasn't been used in the real world probably since it was flight tested after it was manufactured...so in the case of the MD-10's...20 or 30+ years ago!

I sincerely hope that you did nothing that day you had to divert but smile and thank the Captain that had flown you...otherwise I am very embaressed for you.