Incident Overview
On July 23, 2015, at approximately 1605 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-28R-180, registration N4631J, experienced a runway excursion while landing at Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport (FXE), Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The flight instructor and pilot-rated student were not injured. The airplane sustained substantial damage. The aircraft was owned by FlyDreams Aircraft Corporation and operated by SkyEagle Aviation Academy under 14 CFR Part 91 as a local instructional flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed. The flight originated from FXE around 1330.
Sequence of Events
According to the flight instructor, after completing the last maneuver during pre-landing checks, he noticed the landing gear transition light was illuminated. He lowered the landing gear but did not receive a down-and-locked indication for the nose landing gear. After performing an emergency gear extension, the nose gear still did not indicate down and locked. He contacted the flight school and proceeded to FXE for a low pass. Departing the area, he performed another emergency extension, which resulted in a down-and-locked indication for all landing gears, but he observed a left yaw. The left rudder pedal was fully forward, requiring an abnormal amount of right rudder input. Another low pass at FXE confirmed, via company personnel, that the nose landing gear appeared deflected to the left. He returned for a soft field landing, secured the engine after touchdown, and when the nose gear contacted the runway, the airplane veered left and came to rest upright on taxiway G.
Post-Accident Examination
Post-accident examination revealed that the engine and nose gear strut mount assembly (part number 67119-049) was fractured several inches on each side of the aircraft centerline near the nose landing gear pivot location. The fractured section was retained for metallurgical analysis by the NTSB Materials Laboratory.
The NTSB Materials Laboratory Factual Report indicated that both fracture surfaces exhibited fatigue cracks emanating from multiple origins on the outer surface, propagating through the tube wall. A copy of the report is in the NTSB public docket.
Maintenance History
The airplane was purchased by the operator on June 30, 2015. Before purchase, an overhauled engine was installed, and an annual inspection was completed. At the annual inspection, the airplane total time was 8,524.4 hours. Since then, the airplane had operated for about 15 hours.
Manufactured in 1968, the available maintenance records dated only from August 1994 onward. No record existed of the engine and nose gear strut mount assembly being replaced, and no determination could be made regarding the time on that assembly.