An aircrafts shape is extremely smooth to offer minimum resistance to airflow. To help maintain this smooth shape , as soon as an aircraft is safely off the ground , the wheels are taken in and hidden inside. At the time of landing the wheels are needed again. Doors on the under surface would open and the wheels are lowered.
A common arrangement of wheels ( called "gear" in aviation talk) in aircraft like the one involved in Flight 401 is to have two on either side at the back and one at front (nose wheel) (i.e. like a tricycle).
When the crew of Flight 401 put the lever down that lowers the wheels , three green lights should have lit up in the cockpit to indicate that all three wheels were indeed down and locked in that position. Unfortunately , the light for the nose wheel did to light up. The procedure was repeated , but the light remained unlit.
There were two possibilities. Perhaps the front wheel was stuck and was not lowering properly. The other possibility was that the front wheel was indeed safely down , but the indicator system was faulty.
They decided to abandon the landing till they sorted out the problem. The control tower was informed. The tower instructed the landing aircraft to abandon the landing and to climb to two thousand feet.
(for clarity , please ignore text colored GREY)
Captain: I gotta xxxx ? ..... Captain: I gotta raise it back up Captain: Now I'm gonna try it down one more time Co-pilot: All right [sound of altitude alert horn] (low altitude alarm) Co-pilot: (Right) gear. Co-pilot: Well, want to tell 'em we'll take it around and circle around and # around? (telling the Captain to contact the control tower) Capt to air traffic controller: Well ah, tower, this is Eastern, ah, 401. It looks like we're gonna have to circle, we don't have a light on our nose gear yet (they want to circle around the airport to gain time as the light indicator that tells that front wheel is down has not lit up ) Air traffic controller: Eastern 401 heavy, roger, pull up, climb straight ahead to two thousand (feet), go back to approach control, one twenty eight six Co-pilot: Twenty-two degrees. Co-pilot: Twenty-two degrees, gear up Captain: Put power on it first, Bert. Thata boy. Captain: Leave the # # gear down till we find out what we got Co-pilot: Alright
The switch that lowers the aircrafts wheels has a little wheel attached to it to remind pilots of its function. Successful lowering of the three wheels is indicated by the three green lights near the lever.
