Seminole Nose Gear Collapse

primate

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http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20081112X04958&key=1

Just posting this in the interest of safety for all of you who may be flying Seminoles. Training airplanes get a lot of abuse, even twins apparently. The head of the bolt sheared off allowing the link to twist and collapse apparently, on a very gentle landing.

A close inspection of the nose gear at preflight may or may not reveal a problem. In this case, the bolt sheared inside the link on the head side, so it was not visible if it was broken prior to the flight.
 

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I was actually in the run up area waiting to go and saw this accident happen. They made a very nice landing. As soon as the nose wheel touched the ground, the nose gear collapsed. Everyone was ok. Supposedly the bolt in question is supposed to be changed every 500hrs. The bolt on this airplane was at 441 hrs. I wonder if they will change that to 400 hrs.
 
I bet that woke them up. Glad it wasn't any worse and good to know about that bolt although it seems little can be done on our end.
 
Glad they were able to walk away from that one.

That is why we all need to fly planes within the envelope for the next pilot. I used to hear instructors talk about rolling a cessna upside down, power-on stall a twin in slow flight, short field land a seminole on dirt in the nevada desert and all these other unusual maneuvers that are not required by our training SOP.

All they are doing is stressing the airframe for the next pilot who is trying to be safe and fly within the envelope and SOP. And than one day a pilot tries to make a normal and landing and something like this could happen.
 
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20081112X04958&key=1

Just posting this in the interest of safety for all of you who may be flying Seminoles. Training airplanes get a lot of abuse, even twins apparently. The head of the bolt sheared off allowing the link to twist and collapse apparently, on a very gentle landing.

A close inspection of the nose gear at preflight may or may not reveal a problem. In this case, the bolt sheared inside the link on the head side, so it was not visible if it was broken prior to the flight.

Ahhh thats the plane i flew at my flight school!! that plane was a piece and always had problems with it.
 
I was actually in the run up area waiting to go and saw this accident happen. They made a very nice landing. As soon as the nose wheel touched the ground, the nose gear collapsed. Everyone was ok. Supposedly the bolt in question is supposed to be changed every 500hrs. The bolt on this airplane was at 441 hrs. I wonder if they will change that to 400 hrs.

Hmm Riddle had one with a nose-gear collapse. And the FBO on the other side of the field had it happen twice to the same plane. Riddle changes the bolt at 50 hours...
 
Yeah I did my private through multi commercial with them. Now I'm at Falcon doing my CFI. Looks like you are Advanced Aviation with that DA-20
 
This happened to one of the Skymates Seminoles a few years ago. I had to go pick up the poor guys that were along for the ride when it happened as they were doing landings at another airport.
 
The nosegear of a Seminole I was instructing in collapsed also. It happened 3 years ago at Opa Locka. My student had a nice, smooth landing, but the nosewheel just kept going.
 
You have to be sure to carefully inspect the bolts in the nose gear when you rig a Seminole for the 100hr inspection. Shearing of the bolt that holds the nose gear in the locked position is the most common failure, in fact it seems to be always the same failure. You can usually tell if you need to replace it in the 100hr -- if you tend to have to replace them often you might want to ask yourself why the shear stress is more than normal. Strictly speaking, normal usage in a Seminole, it should not exert enough force to shear the bolt for quite a long time. Have to question if it is some other mechanical deficiency that is causing the excess force or the usage of the aircraft (many hard 3 point landings, exceeding gear down speed, flight with gear down more often than not --- all things that occur in training aircraft.)

In case you're curious there is an AD on this for the drag link bolt. It's not an inspection AD though, you just put a kit on. I wonder if that will change if more of these nose gear collapses occur.
 
Have to question if it is some other mechanical deficiency that is causing the excess force or the usage of the aircraft (many hard 3 point landings, exceeding gear down speed, flight with gear down more often than not --- all things that occur in training aircraft.)

You don't have to search hard to find instances of folks not respecting how much force is generated on the nose gear in a hard landing. The CG is going to be forward in most training scenarios anyway, that doesn't help matters.

http://www.37000feet.com/report/692955
 
That just happened to a 'nole here at DVT. Poor PanAm (now TransPac) kid came in for a landing and ended up creating a shower of sparks down the runway...
 
with how hard some of the students slam on the brakes (not sure why!) i am suprised we don't see it more often here.
 
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