The Piper Chieftain was being flown as a single-pilot operation
to conduct a scheduled passenger flight from Adelaide to Kingscote.
The Chieftain was one of six aircraft being used by the operator on
the route at the time. The other aircraft were involved in
passenger charter operation. The six aircraft departed Adelaide at
about the same time for Kingscote and the Chieftain was the first
to approach the airfield.
The pilot reported that he decided, based on the Kingscote
Automatic Weather Service reports and the weather forecast for the
area, to descend to the sector's Lowest Safe Altitude. He intended
to descend clear of cloud and approach the airfield to land on
Runway 19 via a 5 NM straight-in visual approach. He had also
planned to conduct a Sector A Global Positioning System (GPS)
instrument arrival should the aircraft not break clear of cloud in
sufficient time for a normal visual approach. Due to the weather
conditions, the pilot decided to make the Sector A GPS arrival. The
pilot reported that during the descent and approach, the pilots of
the other aircraft were querying him about the cloud base and
weather so that they could plan their arrivals.
The pilot reported that, during the GPS arrival, he had
configured the aircraft in accordance with the operator's
requirements and aircraft checklist, including lowering the landing
gear. The aircraft broke clear of cloud at about 1,000 ft and 2 NM
from the airfield. The pilot decided that the aircraft would
require excessive manoeuvring to land directly from the approach
and chose, instead, to conduct a left circling approach to Runway
19. He reported that he raised the landing gear to reduce the
chance of large power changes that may have alarmed the passengers.
He then flew the circling approach but did not lower the landing
gear.
While the pilot was answering queries from other pilots about
the weather conditions on the MBZ frequency, he was also listening
to radio traffic on the ATC frequency. He also reported that there
was light rain falling and running along the windscreen, reducing
visibility and increasing his workload.
The pilot reported that late in the landing flare, he heard the
landing gear warning horn and the scraping of the aircraft on the
runway. He initiated a go around and advised the following aircraft
of the event, however he did not receive a reply because the
aircraft's VHF antennas had been damaged during the scrape on the
runway. He then lowered the landing gear and landed without further
incident on Runway 24 to help ensure separation from the following
aircraft. The Chieftain sustained damage to both propellers, the
VHF radio aerials on the underside of the aircraft fuselage and the
inboard sections of the flaps.
The pilot was in a high workload situation, manoeuvring the
aircraft in order to set it up for landing, and was probably
distracted by the radio broadcasts and weather conditions at the
time, which resulted in him forgetting to lower the landing gear
before landing.
