Narrative:

Repeat incident; almost exact problem on this flight as on a flight ten days earlier. A company safety report was submitted for that problem. I was pilot flying (PF); called for landing gear down at 2000 feet MSL near glideslope intercept. I looked over and saw all amber gear-door lights illuminate and then I looked back outside. Seconds later; I could feel change in aircraft vibration and looked back at gear lights. We had both system 1 & 2 (front panel and overhead panels) green main gear down and locked indications and nose gear red unlocked indications on both systems. All amber gear-door lights were out. This exact indication problem happened to us ten day ago; but unlike that time on the go-around and acceleration we finally got green nose gear indication. This time we were unable to get a safe; green nose gear indication on either system. We executed a go-around; leaving the gear down and told ATC we had gear unsafe indications. We asked for vectors to run our checklist on manual gear extension; as the electronic centralized aircraft monitor (ECAM) directed. I maintained PF duties and the first officer (first officer) worked checklists. After manual extension we still had red unsafe nose gear on both systems; per QRH; we accelerated; no help. Notified ATC of an emergency. The first officer went into the avionics compartment for visual verification of nose gear locked. He was pretty sure it was locked; we did a low fly by the tower to have them also verify that the nose gear looked fully extended; they did confirm it appeared down. We continued gear unsafe checklist and first officer went down one more time to look at visual indicator and felt sure it was down and locked. We landed and rolled to a stop on runway; set brakes and started the APU and shutdown engines for tow into gate. After shutdown; the green nose gear light came on. Excellent pilot monitoring duties by the first officer on go around and all the checklist work.cause: the only commonality that I can come up with on the two incidents was that both times we left the departure airport we had heavy rain at the airport and on taxi out. The first time; we took on water and had the electric/electronics (east&east) compartment inspected; no water noted. This time we were fully closed up when the heavy rain hit but had long taxi to the runway in light to moderate rain. Long flights at flight level 320 with fairly cold outside temperatures. There was a subtle difference in aircraft vibration after the gear extension that caught my attention before seeing the red unlocked nose gear indications.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A300 flight crew reported a red nose landing gear unsafe indication during approach was mitigated with checklist procedure and visual verification.

Narrative: Repeat incident; almost exact problem on this flight as on a flight ten days earlier. A company safety report was submitted for that problem. I was pilot flying (PF); called for landing gear down at 2000 feet MSL near glideslope intercept. I looked over and saw all amber gear-door lights illuminate and then I looked back outside. Seconds later; I could feel change in aircraft vibration and looked back at gear lights. We had both system 1 & 2 (front panel and overhead panels) green main gear down and locked indications and nose gear RED unlocked indications on both systems. All amber gear-door lights were out. This exact indication problem happened to us ten day ago; but unlike that time on the go-around and acceleration we finally got green nose gear indication. This time we were unable to get a safe; green nose gear indication on either system. We executed a go-around; leaving the gear down and told ATC we had gear unsafe indications. We asked for vectors to run our checklist on manual gear extension; as the Electronic Centralized Aircraft Monitor (ECAM) directed. I maintained PF duties and the First Officer (F/O) worked checklists. After manual extension we still had RED unsafe nose gear on both systems; per QRH; we accelerated; no help. Notified ATC of an emergency. The F/O went into the avionics compartment for visual verification of nose gear locked. He was pretty sure it was locked; we did a low fly by the tower to have them also verify that the nose gear looked fully extended; they did confirm it appeared down. We continued gear unsafe checklist and first officer went down one more time to look at visual indicator and felt sure it was down and locked. We landed and rolled to a stop on runway; set brakes and started the APU and shutdown engines for tow into gate. After shutdown; the green nose gear light came on. Excellent Pilot Monitoring duties by the first officer on go around and all the checklist work.Cause: The only commonality that I can come up with on the two incidents was that both times we left the departure airport we had heavy rain at the airport and on taxi out. The first time; we took on water and had the electric/electronics (E&E) compartment inspected; no water noted. This time we were fully closed up when the heavy rain hit but had long taxi to the runway in light to moderate rain. Long flights at flight level 320 with fairly cold outside temperatures. There was a subtle difference in aircraft vibration after the gear extension that caught my attention before seeing the red unlocked nose gear indications.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.