What happened
The flight involved a routine approach to runway 24. During the final phase of the landing sequence, the aircraft experienced a hard touchdown. The pilot described being on short final when setting up for the landing approach. Upon crossing the runway threshold in the configured landing state, the main wheels made initial contact with the pavement.
Instead of settling onto the runway surface, the aircraft ballooned or porpoised back into the air. The aircraft then descended again, this time impacting the ground on its nose gear. This secondary impact caused substantial damage to the forward section of the airframe.
The investigation
Post-acc examination revealed extensive damage resulting from the bounce. The nose wheel assembly was compromised by the hard contact with the runway surface. Additionally, the propeller blades sustained damage, likely due to the altered pitch or angle during the nose-down impact. The engine firewall also showed signs of structural stress and deformation consistent with the forces generated during the bounce.
Findings
The primary factor in this incident was the pilot's inability to arrest the descent rate effectively after the initial main gear touchdown. The resulting porpoising motion transferred excessive vertical load to the nose landing gear, which is not designed to absorb such energy repeatedly. This led to the cascading damage observed on the propeller and firewall.