What happened
On December 14, 2019, an Aero Commander AC500S, registration OB-1689, was conducting a flight instruction mission involving navigation and touch-and-go maneuvers. The flight, operated by Inversiones Aeronáuticas León S.A.C., was traveling from Pisco to the María Reiche Neuman Airport in Nazca, Peru.
During the landing phase, after the aircraft had made initial contact with the runway, the nose gear began to retract. The crew immediately responded by pitching the nose up and applying power to execute a go-around. Following this, the crew requested permission from the control tower to perform a low-altitude pass so that controllers could visually verify the position of the nose gear. Although the tower indicated the gear appeared to be down, the gear retracted again during a subsequent landing attempt, forcing a second go-around.
After a third low-altitude pass, where the gear again appeared to be in the down position, the crew performed the landing while following a checklist prepared for potential gear retraction. The aircraft landed without further incident and was subsequently towed to a maintenance facility for inspection. There were no injuries to the instructor or the student pilot.
The investigation
The CIAA investigation involved coordination with the aircraft manufacturer and the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Following the event, the OB-1689 was moved to a specialized maintenance organization (OMA) at Nazca airport to inspect the landing gear extension and retraction system.
Findings
Technical inspections of the landing gear system revealed that a component within the retraction system was fractured. This fractured component was transferred to the SEMAN FAP laboratory for fractographic and metallographic analysis to determine the exact nature of the failure.