Accident Details
On 13 January 2009 at 1630 hrs, an Agusta A109 A2, registration N745HA, was involved in a training accident at Fairoaks Airport, Chobham, Surrey. The aircraft was conducting a type rating course flight with two crew members and no passengers. Neither crew member was injured. The aircraft sustained damage to its nose landing gear.
History of the Flight
The instructor briefed the student for a simulated double engine failure exercise, which involved an autorotation to a powered recovery using Runway 24 as the aiming point. The aircraft was positioned on final approach for Runway 24, level at 1,200 ft aal with an indicated airspeed of 100 kt. The instructor initiated the autorotation with the verbal instruction, “double engine failure, GO”, and retarded both engine Speed Select Levers (SSLs) from the flight idle position. The aircraft was established in autorotation at approximately 75 kt, manoeuvring towards Runway 24. The student was not achieving the required aiming point, and the instructor advised corrective action. Late in the exercise, the instructor realised that he had not reinstated the SSLs and advanced them to the flight idle position. He took control and performed a running landing on the grass area alongside the runway. The touchdown seemed normal, with a landing run on of some three to four metres and no excessive vertical or sideways forces.
Damage and Post-Flight Inspection
The aircraft was hover-taxied back to the parking area for a precautionary check and landed with no apparent signs of damage. After shutting down, the pilot noticed that the retractable nose landing gear did not appear to be fully extended. Close inspection revealed that the extension strut had collapsed and that the nose leg was resting against the underside of the fuselage. The pilot considered that the damage had occurred during the short run on landing on the softer ground.
Analysis
Although the exercise had been properly briefed, the instructor became distracted from reinstating the SSLs by 500 ft agl while assisting the student. He concluded that it would have been better to reinstate the SSLs to the flight idle position before carrying out instruction or to abandon the exercise and repeat it after debriefing the student on the previous attempt.