What happened
During a nighttime landing, the pilot experienced difficulty maintaining the correct pitch attitude due to windy conditions. The pilot reported flying at 100 knots on final approach and noted that upon touchdown, the nose of the aircraft was too low. In an attempt to correct the attitude, the pilot pulled back on the elevator; however, after the nose came up, it again dropped too low. The pilot then stopped the engines using the mixture control, at which point the aircraft came to a stop with the nose down.
The investigation
An inspection of the aircraft following the event revealed that the nose gear had collapsed. The support tube for the nose gear was forced vertically upward through the top of the airframe by approximately 6 inches. This impact caused the center windshield airframe post to be pushed upward, and both the left and right windshields were separated from the cockpit's windshield frame. Additionally, all three blade tips on both propellers exhibited bending toward the aft direction, along with chordwise gouging and scraping.