NASA · Aviation Safety Reporting System
PA28R Pilot reported engine compartment fire and gear up landing.
What is ASRS?
The Aviation Safety Reporting System is NASA's voluntary, confidential, non- punitive incident-reporting system, established 1976. Pilots, controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance technicians file reports describing safety- relevant events. NASA de-identifies every report before adding it to the public database. Reports are not investigated by NASA, the FAA, or the NTSB — they represent the reporter's perspective.
Pilot narrative
Verbatim from the de-identified NASA record. First-person account by the
reporter. NASA strips identifying details (names, company, specific time);
anonymization placeholders are ZZZ,
X, Y.
The flight was planned as a short preparation flight for a cross country the next day. Essentially a few practice approaches and back down again. Bird nesting season is in full bloom and I completed a thorough (or so I thought) preflight removing the new full-cowl cover and nose plugs for keeping birds out. I proceeded with normal start, taxi and run-up procedures and then entered my flight plan into the Garmin 430. Executed a normal takeoff. At about 50-100 ft. altitude the Cockpit began to fill with smoke. It was too late to abort the takeoff so I opted for an immediate landing asking the aircraft ahead of me to extend his downwind so that I could make a very shortened pattern. I lowered the gear handle and opened the pilot’s vent window which helped clear my watering eyes. My approach was high and I slipped to slow the aircraft and keep the smoke away from the left side. At about 50 ft. I stopped the slip and lowered full flaps. I began a normal flare and at this point the prop and flaps absorbed the landing. The aircraft came to a stop. I performed shutdown procedures and egress with my [dog] who was on his first demo flight. As I reached to turn off the master switch I noted that the gear safe lights were all out and the auto gear extension was in the proper position for an auto extension that did not happen. Better a gear up landing than a crash due to smoke inhalation.
NASA classification — Anomalies
- Aircraft Equipment Problem
- Flight Deck / Cabin / Aircraft Event
- Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural
- Ground Event / Encounter
- Inflight Event / Encounter
NASA classification — Assessments
- Contributing Factors / Situations
- Aircraft · Environment - Non Weather Related · Human Factors
- Primary Problem
- Human Factors
ASRS reports are voluntarily submitted, de-identified by NASA, and represent the reporter's perspective. The presence of reports on a topic cannot be used to infer prevalence in the National Airspace System. The authoritative source is the NASA ASRS Database Online at asrs.arc.nasa.gov ↗.