Accident Summary
On October 13, 2017, at 0857 mountain standard time, a Diamond Aircraft Industries DA-40 airplane, registration N965DS, experienced substantial damage upon landing at Falcon Field Airport (FFZ) in Mesa, Arizona. The flight instructor and the pilot receiving instruction were not injured. The aircraft was owned and operated by CAE Oxford Aviation Academy of Phoenix, Arizona, conducting a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 employment evaluation flight. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed, and no flight plan was filed. The flight originated from FFZ at 0750.
Previous Night's Event
The evening before, on October 12, 2017, about 2140, a student pilot on a solo flight struck a coyote with the right main landing gear during the landing flare. The pilot contacted flight school management to report the event. A visual examination by the pilot revealed no apparent damage, and she was instructed to fly the aircraft back to FFZ. Upon landing, a flight school mechanic examined the airplane and reported seeing hair in the gear. The airplane was not taken out of service.
Morning Flight and Discovery
The following morning, October 13, 2017, the airplane was dispatched for a local flight. The dispatcher informed the flight instructor about the coyote strike from the previous night. The flight instructor and the pilot receiving instruction performed a preflight inspection and noted no anomalies. The evaluation flight included instrument approaches and touch-and-go landings. After the final landing at FFZ, the pilots heard an abnormal noise coming from the area of the right main landing gear. Flight school maintenance personnel conducted a more detailed examination and found that the internal composite wing structure at the landing gear attachment point was fractured.
Responses
Following the incident, the flight school updated its procedures for event and discrepancy reporting and for returning aircraft to service, aiming to prevent the possibility of dispatching an unairworthy airplane in the future.