What happened
On 6 July 2015, a Pegasus XL-Q, registration G-MWPE, was conducting a private flight at Sutton Meadows Airfield in Cambridgeshire. The flight involved a single pilot with 559 hours of experience, all of which were logged on this specific aircraft type.
Prior to the accident, the pilot had performed a go-around after determining the aircraft was too high on the initial final approach. On the subsequent attempt, the pilot positioned the aircraft correctly and made contact with the runway on the rear wheels. However, as the nose of the aircraft was lowered following touchdown, the aircraft flipped into an inverted position. The pilot was able to exit the aircraft without any injuries, though the aircraft sustained damage that rendered it beyond economic repair.
The investigation
The investigation was based on the aircraft accident report submitted by the pilot. The examination focused on the sequence of the landing and the physical orientation of the aircraft during the transition from touchdown to the nose-down attitude. The pilot noted that the nosewheel may have been off-centre during the second approach, a detail that was not verified prior to the landing attempt.