The Twin Turbo Prop Beech King Air A100 was touching down for a landing on the asphalt runway at Buffalo Narrows, Sask., when the nose gear collapsed. The nose gear assembly on the A100, which is canted forward, collapsed forward (opposite to the normal direction of retraction), and the aircraft rolled along the runway on the nose wheel, which had become imbedded in the nose cone. Both propellers, the inside of the nose gear wheel well, and the nose cone were damaged. There were no injuries to the two crew or to the four passengers that were aboard. The crew reported that the approach and landing were normal until the nose-gear collapse. There was no indication of a landing-gear malfunction prior to touchdown, and the gear lights showed \”down and locked.\” [ad#text]
Upon initial examination, two points of failure were observed: at the upper drag brace support bracket, which had torn free from the wheel, and at the nose gear actuator shaft, which was broken.
Further investigation determined that the initiating source of the failure was traced to the left-hand upper drag brace attachment pin (P/N 50-820233 or 99-820110-9) that was missing and had not been properly secured to the drag brace assembly. The missing pin caused the transfer of loads to the right upper drag brace attachment fitting, which fatigued and failed, passing the loads to the right intercostal rib. The rivets securing the intercostal rib to the wheel well began to pull from the sheet metal attachment point until failure occurred, and the landing gear collapsed.
Aviation Landing Gear
Arrow points to where the missing left-hand upper drag brace attachment pin should have been
The aircraft had been imported from the U.S. and issued a Certificate of Airworthiness (C of A) for type-certificated aircraft into Canada. The aircraft had not yet undergone its first-phase inspection. The landing gear was last overhauled and installed on the aircraft eight years earlier (February 25, 2000), 2 051 cycles prior to the failure.
