[12thr0wit]

Pilots really push back against this kind of safety feature. They want 100% control of their vehicles, including the ability to lift the landing gear while on the ground, because the risk of equipment failure that cannot be manually overridden is high.

[sokoloff]

Agreed. It's a very common feeling that "I am better than the automation." Even as an engineer and a fan of statistics, I share that visceral and inherent bias in my ego-laden monkey brain.

On your specific example, there's little life-safety risk in inadvertent retraction of the gear. Sure, you're going to make expensive sparks, but it is extremely unlikely that anyone will die or even suffer life-changing injuries. The only likely injuries are from the slides and evacuation process.

In contrast, being unable to raise the gear can be a life-safety emergency. Take a piston twin such as the one I fly. An engine failure with the airplane heavy and the gear down is a bona fide emergency.

Suppose I take a bird or deer strike just after liftoff that damages the propeller and the "squat switch" (the weight-on-wheels sensor that prevents the gear being raised electrically). The prop damage may force me to shut down that engine at the same time that I can't raise the gear electrically (because the squat switch says we're still on the ground). I may not be able to climb the airplane with the available power on the left side engine while manually cranking up the gear, and I'm heavy, low, and slow.

What first seems like a "duh, pilots would have to be idiots for arguing they should be able to raise the gear with weight on the wheels" is actually a tradeoff between a high likelihood of inadvertent switch mis-use with only financial consequences versus a very low likelihood of losing the aircraft an all on board.

Of course, people are both bad at math, bad at understanding low probability/high impact events, and very uncomfortable with "costing" human lives such that a tradeoff can be made across financial losses and human lives lost.