The 87-year-old pilot who skipped a gear-up Piper Aerostar off a runway in Florida earlier this month told AVweb he didn't forget to drop the gear. In fact, Chris Gaklis said in an interview he retracted the gear a few seconds before the aircraft was caught on video clattering down the short strip at Aero Acres Air Park in Port St. Lucie, then lurching back into the air. It was, he said, a botched go-around rather than a gear-up landing. "As I was coming in on final I noticed the (crosswind) was coming up," he said. He decided to go around but after pulling up the gear and firewalling the throttles, he retracted the flaps prematurely. "It dropped about eight feet," he said. He said he knew the aircraft had spent some time on the ground but the howling engines masked the extent of the impromptu belly landing and he elected to continue the go-around.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/news/gear-up-mishap-was-botched-go-around