What happened
Following landing, the pilot taxied the aircraft back along the runway toward a designated parking area. During this maneuver, the nose wheel encountered a depression in the runway surface that had been filled with sand. The structural integrity of the nose gear was compromised as the wheel fell into this void, resulting in the collapse of the nose landing gear assembly.
The investigation
Inspection of the airfield conditions revealed that county maintenance personnel had graded the runway surface following recent heavy rains. However, the grading process was incomplete because no compaction work had been performed on the graded surface. Additionally, there were no Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) or other advisory notices issued to alert pilots to the hazardous surface conditions.
Findings
The accident was primarily caused by the nose gear collapsing after the wheel dropped into a sand-filled depression in the runway surface. Contributing factors included the lack of compaction by maintenance personnel and the absence of any safety advisories regarding the degraded runway condition.