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 November 2020. 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 the statements made by the pilots and the head of the flying club maintenance workshop. This information has not been independently validated by the BEA.

1 - HiSTORY OF THE FLIGHT

The student pilot, accompanied by an instructor, performed aerodrome circuits on runway 08. The 10:10 ATIS indicated wind at 6 kt from 360° with 14 kt gusts varying from 300° to 050°.

After two touch-and-go landings on unpaved runway 08, the student pilot landed on paved runway 08. Just after the wheel touch-down, the instructor felt strong vibrations. He decided to abort the flight and took back control. While running at low speed, the vibrations disappeared. The instructor stopped the aircraft and the two occupants opened the doors to observe the wheels of the main landing gear from their seats. As they did not see anything abnormal, the instructor resumed taxiing towards the parking area. He noticed that the aircraft tended to veer to the right. During the last turn, the nose gear leg broke and the nose of the aeroplane hit the ground.

2 - ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
2.1 Instructor information

The 41-year-old instructor held a commercial pilot license CPL(A) with an FI(A) instructor rating. He had logged 1,792 flight hours, including nearly 110 hours on type.

2.2 Student pilot information

The 20-year-old student pilot had logged about 15 hours of dual flight, all on type.

2.3 Aeroplane information

Six cases of P2008 nose gear failures in France have been reported to the BEA since 2015.

Following the accident to the P2008 JC registered HB-KMJ in 2015[1], Tecnam issued Service Bulletin SB 215 - CS recommending a visual inspection of the nose gear welds, to be repeated every 25 flight hours. Revision 3 of SB 215 - CS was issued in September 2019 following the publication of the BEA report on the accident to the P2008 JC registered F-ORVY[2]: this revision added paint stripping prior to performing the crack inspection.

This service bulletin applies to P2008 JCs up to serial number 1055, after which a new, more robust nose gear model was put into production by Tecnam. This new nose gear can be installed as a replacement on earlier aircraft. F-HOOS was not equipped with the new nose gear model.

The SB 215 - CS Revision 3 inspection had been performed on F-HOOS 22 flight hours before the accident; no cracks had been detected.

The head of the maintenance workshop for the club's aeroplanes said that following this event, all the Tecnam P2008s they monitor were now equipped with the new type of nose gear. He added that they nevertheless continued to regularly perform a thorough inspection following a crack detected on one of these new gear.