David Cartwright wrote:


One has to wonder why they didn't put it down for you (the fact that they
said it was up suggests it was retractable). As for what would have
happened - well, it would almost certainly have damaged your landing gear.

The retraction mechanism could have been disabled or inoperative. When
Ellington (KEFD) was having their tower refurbished, the tower did not
have control over retractible mechanisms and relied on airport
operations personnel to manual actuate and retract the barrier as needed
(using a guy in a truck).

If a small or light plane was cleared to land just prior to or just
after military fighter type aircraft, the cable was likely to be up and
the tower would announce such to the inbound aircraft.

Dave