Three Greens
The Arrow's gear, a distracted pattern, and the landing that ends careers
The scenario
Field: Clearwater Air Park (KCLW), Clearwater, FL — elevation 71 ft MSL. You are returning from a short cross-country and entering the left traffic pattern for Runway 34. KCLW is non-towered (CTAF 123.075); no control tower, no gear warning from the ground. Tampa Class B begins at 3,000 ft MSL overhead — you are well below it in the pattern.
Aircraft: Piper Arrow (PA-28R-201), solo, within limits. The Arrow is a complex airplane: hydraulically actuated retractable gear (Vle 129 KIAS), constant-speed propeller, fuel-injected Lycoming IO-360. Fuel selector is on LEFT. Everything was normal on the cross-country.
Situation: It has been a busy flight. On the 45° entry to the downwind for Runway 34, another aircraft calls a 3-mile final for Runway 34 and you spend 20 seconds scanning for traffic. You also notice your sectional has slid off the seat. The pattern is busier than you expected. You are task-saturated.
The Arrow's gear-up landing is the dominant accident type at this field — 18.5% of KCLW's accident corpus. The off-field environment off both runway ends is dense development with no viable forced-landing area. There is no margin for a go-around that ends in the neighborhood. Getting the gear down — and confirmed — before touchdown is the entire ballgame.
Pilot: you — a Private pilot, 210 hours, 40 in type. You have flown the Arrow enough to feel comfortable. Which is exactly the population this accident finds.
- {'label': 'Field', 'value': 'KCLW · Clearwater Air Park'}
- {'label': 'Runways', 'value': '16/34'}
- {'label': 'Elevation', 'value': '71 ft'}
- {'label': 'Aircraft', 'value': 'PA-28R'}
- {'label': 'Dominant phase', 'value': 'Landing / Approach'}
The decision
You're rolling onto the downwind leg for Runway 34 at KCLW. Before we get into the scenario — which of these are already in your head? (Pick all that apply; this records your starting mental model.)
What the record shows
What the NTSB files show — and what happens at KCLW
Gear-up landings in the Piper Arrow are remarkably consistent in their cause: distraction during the traffic pattern leads to a missed or incomplete before-landing checklist, the gear-warning horn is either not heard or misinterpreted, and the airplane touches down on its belly. The NTSB probable cause language is nearly identical across dozens of cases: 'the pilot's failure to extend the landing gear before landing due to distraction and failure to conduct the before-landing checklist.'
The specific cases behind this scenario include: CEN24LA288 (2024) — a PA-28R-180 pilot distracted by skydiving operations and an unfamiliar airport omitted the before-landing checklist; CEN25LA133 (2025) — a PA-28R-201T pilot distracted by an external seatbelt issue and pattern traffic omitted the prelanding checklist; CEN25LA120 (2025) — an instructional flight in a PA-28R-200 where radio traffic distraction and instructor complacency led to a gear-up landing; CEN11LA418 (2011) — a PA-28R-201 pilot whose hydraulic power pack motor failed did not use the emergency extension system, resulting in a wheels-up landing. These events occurred at various airports across the country — not at KCLW — but the Arrow fleet's gear-up rate is high enough that KCLW's own accident history shows it as the field's second-most-common accident type.
The class-peer seeds (Beech 95, Beech A36, Beech S35) tell the same story in different airplanes: distraction, missed checklist, gear-warning horn misidentified or ignored, gear-up contact. One Beech S35 pilot (WPR26LA016, 2025) retracted the gear instead of the flaps on a touch-and-go — the Arrow's gear and flap levers are similarly positioned, and the same error is possible.
The Arrow has two layers of protection the pilot failed to use in every one of these events: (1) the GUMPS check, which puts 'Undercarriage' as a deliberate, timed action on downwind, and (2) the three-green confirmation on final, which is the only positive confirmation that all three legs are locked. The gear-warning horn is an alert — it tells you the throttle is low and the gear is up; it does not confirm the gear is down. Pilots who treat the horn as a 'gear-down confirmation' are one throttle position away from a gear-up landing.
At KCLW specifically: the off-field environment off both Runway 16 and Runway 34 is dense development with no viable forced-landing area. A go-around that becomes a forced landing — from a prop strike, engine stoppage, or loss of control during a last-second go-around attempt — has nowhere to go. The discipline to get the gear down early, confirmed, and verified is not optional at this field.
Key lesson — Distraction is the trigger; a missed GUMPS check is the mechanism; no three-green verification is the final failure. The Arrow's gear-warning horn is not a gear-down confirmation — it is an alert. GUMPS on downwind, three greens on final, every time, no exceptions for familiarity or busyness.
Debrief — teaching points
GUMPS is a timed, non-negotiable checklist item — not a habit.
Gas (fuel selector on fullest tank), Undercarriage (gear lever DOWN, verify three greens), Mixture (rich for landing), Prop (full forward), Seatbelts. It belongs on downwind, abeam the numbers, every time — not 'when I get around to it' and not 'I always do it.' The Arrow fleet's gear-up accident record is built almost entirely on pilots who believed they always did it. A written or memory checklist run at a fixed point in the pattern is the only defense against distraction-induced omission.
Three greens is the only confirmation that the gear is locked.
The gear lever in the DOWN detent means you commanded extension. Three green lights mean all three legs are down and locked. These are not the same thing. The hydraulic system takes several seconds to extend and lock all three legs; a rushed extension may leave one or more legs unlocked. The gear-warning horn tells you the throttle is low and the gear is up — it does not confirm the gear is down. Count three greens on final, every approach.
The Arrow's emergency free-fall extension exists for a reason — know it before you need it.
If the hydraulic system fails or a partial gear indication persists after recycling, the Arrow has a manual emergency free-fall extension handle. Pull the handle, allow the full extension time, and verify three greens before any approach. CEN11LA418 is the cautionary case: the power pack motor failed, the pilot did not use the emergency extension, and the airplane landed gear-up. The procedure is in the POH; brief it on every preflight.
A last-second go-around in the flare is not a go-around — it is a prop strike.
When the gear-warning horn sounds in the flare at 5 feet AGL, there is no altitude to execute a go-around. Adding full power at that point drives the propeller into the runway surface, destroying the engine and adding a prop-strike teardown to the gear-up damage. If the horn sounds in the flare, the correct action is to fly the airplane onto the runway in a controlled, wings-level attitude, maintain directional control, and shut down fuel and magnetos after the airplane stops. A controlled gear-up landing on a 4,108 ft runway is survivable. A prop-strike go-around attempt is not predictably so.
Distraction is the proximate cause in nearly every Arrow gear-up — manage it structurally.
Radio calls, traffic conflicts, loose items in the cockpit, unfamiliar airports, passenger conversation — every one of these has appeared as the distraction in a gear-up NTSB report. The defense is not 'try harder to remember.' It is structural: run the checklist at a fixed point (abeam the numbers on downwind), say the items out loud, touch the gear lever and count the greens. If something interrupts the checklist, start it over from the beginning. At KCLW, where both runway ends are surrounded by dense development, the cost of a distraction-induced gear-up is the airplane and potentially the pilot.
Built from the real accident record
Composite scenario built from multiple NTSB gear-up landing events in the Piper PA-28R Arrow and class-peer retractable singles. See based_on for individual case numbers. Anonymized and localized to KCLW.
NTSB reports: CEN24LA288 · WPR22LA040 · CEN11LA418 · CEN25LA133 · CEN25LA120 · ERA26LA045 · CEN26LA028 · WPR26LA016 · ERA25LA343 · CEN25LA319 · WPR24LA167 · GAA19CA534
ACS tasks: PA.IV.A — Normal Approach and Landing · PA.II.A — Preflight Inspection / Systems Knowledge · PA.I.H — Human Factors · PA.IX.C — Emergency Equipment and Survival Gear
Step through the full decision tree, make the calls, and see where each choice leads — then debrief it with your CFI.
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