Accident to the Beechcraft A36 Bonanza registered F-GPGI on 06/08/2021 at Limoges Bellegarde (Haute-Vienne)

Cat. 3 investigation report: report concerning an occurrence with limited consequences, based on one or more statements not independently validated by the BEA.

This is a courtesy translation by the BEA of the Final Report on the Safety Investigation published in September 2021. As accurate as the translation may be, the original text in French is the work of reference.

Note: The following information is principally based on statements made by the pilot. This information has not been independently validated by the BEA.

1 - HISTORY OF THE FLIGHT

The pilot, accompanied by two passengers, took off from Bordeaux Mérignac aerodrome to ferry the aeroplane to its base, Limoges Bellegarde aerodrome.
During the landing run, after the aeroplane had run over a runway centreline light, the pilot felt a shimmy[1], which he tried to put an end to by pulling on the stick to take weight off the aeroplane’s nose. He then realised that the slide rod of the nose gear had come out of its housing. He tried to keep the aeroplane’s path on the runway and to maintain the nose of the aeroplane raised to mitigate the consequences of the impact with the runway.
The aeroplane’s nose finally dropped, causing the propeller to touch the ground. The aeroplane then slid on the shock absorber strut of the nose gear and came to rest on the runway.

2 - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

The pilot, who had held a PPL(A) private pilot licence since 2004, had logged about 1,030 flight hours, of which 296 hours were on type.
The pilot stated that he had extended the landing gear during the approach to runway 21 and made sure that all three green lights were on when completing the pre-landing checklist.
According to him, the shimmy induced by the nosewheel coming into contact with a runway centreline light caused a nose gear torque link to break. When he took weight off the aeroplane’s nose to stop the shimmy, the slide rod came out of its housing.
The pilot reported that on the last few flights he had not noticed any shimmy or defects on the aeroplane.