A landing gear error nearly ended in disaster—and exposed how small breakdowns can cascade when systems don’t catch mistakes early.
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In this Mistake of the Week, Mark Graban breaks down an incident involving an American Airlines A319 on final approach to Phoenix — captured on video with its landing gear still up. A cockpit alert sounded, the crew realized what was missing, and the pilots executed a safe go-around. Their explanation to air traffic control? A perfectly understated: “It wasn’t configured in the appropriate manner.”
Mark explores why these near-misses are less about individual oversight and more about systems built to detect — and correct — human error. From checklists to cockpit warnings to the decision to go around instead of pushing forward, this episode highlights why safety depends on catching mistakes early, not pretending they don't happen.
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Transcript:
I'm Mark Graban, and this is Mistake of the Week, an occasional series inside the My Favorite Mistake podcast, where we look at real-world slip-ups and explore what they tell us about systems, not scapegoats. Today we've got a little turbulence to discuss. Earlier this month, an American Airlines A319 was on final approach into Phoenix.
At that point in a flight, everything should look the same. Flaps down, checklist complete, landing gear lowered. Except, in this case, it wasn't. A YouTube plane spotter captured video of the aircraft lined up perfectly with the runway, stable, steady, and missing its landing gear. The plane was descending like it intended to perform a very expensive belly landing.
A few seconds later, the landing gear suddenly began extending. You can almost imagine the warning alarm sounding in the cockpit, followed by two pilots having the exact same realization at the same time: “Wait, did you… No. No. Did I? Did I?” They executed a go-around, a calm, controlled reset, and then came the wonderfully understated radio call to air traffic control, quote:
“Uh, it wasn't configured in the appropriate manner.”
If understatement were an Olympic event, that line earns a gold medal. In aviation, checklists exist precisely to prevent this sort of thing. They turn memory into process and process into safety. Airbus adds even more protection: configuration warnings that activate if the aircraft isn't set up properly for landing.
That's what happened here. A mistake occurred, the warning system caught it, and the pilots corrected it. A go-around isn't a failure. It's the aviation version of a PDSA cycle, or Plan, Do, Study, Adjust. Plan the approach, do the approach or start it, study what's happening, adjust, and reset based on the alert.
This incident shows how distraction and cognitive load create blind spots, even for highly trained professionals. We're all human. In a 2020 Pakistan International Airlines crash, investigators found the pilots, distracted by a conversation, also forgot to lower the landing gear. They didn't catch the mistake until the engines hit the runway.
Different consequences, but a reminder of the same human vulnerability.
When something like this happens, it's tempting to blame the individuals, but blaming people doesn't fix systems. A well-designed system assumes humans will occasionally miss something and builds in protections: alerts, checklists, cross-checks, teamwork, and the freedom to stop and reset. That's the real story here in this most recent situation.
The system worked. The safeguard activated, the pilots responded appropriately. The best organizations don't just celebrate perfection. They celebrate catches, because catching a mistake early is what prevents harm. Now, if you were a passenger on that flight, the go-around might've felt dramatic: the sudden thrust, the climb, the change in cabin noise.
But the truth is far more reassuring. A checklist step was missed. Apparently, the aircraft told the pilots so, and they made the safe choice. A mistake caught in time is a success story. I'm Mark Graban. Thanks for listening to Mistake of the Week. As always, I want to thank you for listening. I hope this podcast inspires you to reflect on your own mistakes, how you can learn from them or turn them into a positive.
I've had listeners tell me they started being more open and honest about mistakes in their work, and they're trying to create a workplace culture where it's safe to speak up about problems, because that leads to more improvement and better business results. If you have feedback or a story to share, you can email me: myfavoritemistakepodcast@gmail.com.
And again, our website is myfavoritemistakepodcast.com.