Incident Overview
During a landing attempt, the aircraft's nose gear failed, causing the nose to pitch down. The event followed an earlier landing that had resulted in a flat nose wheel tire.
Prior Landing and Repair
Before the accident flight, the airplane had landed with a flat nose wheel tire. The pilot rectified the flat tire and initially considered the aircraft airworthy. Subsequently, during a later flight, the pilot noticed that the aircraft was unstable to fly and suspected the nosewheel was cocked sideways.
Subsequent Observations
An A&P mechanic also assessed that the landing gear might have sustained damage from the earlier landing with the flat tire. The investigation did not include a metallurgical examination of the failed landing gear fork, so the exact failure mechanism was not determined.