What happened
On 24 January 2002, a Partenavia P64B, registered as ZS-FZS, was involved in an incident during a touch-and-go landing at Rustenburg Aerodrome. Prior to the flight, while moving the aircraft out of a hangar, the pilot observed that the nose wheel torque link was positioned in an unusual and reversed direction. The pilot manually repositioned the torque link to its standard orientation using his foot, after which the assembly appeared to be functioning normally.
During the subsequent flight operations, a student pilot was performing a touch-and-go maneuver. During the landing phase, the nose wheel rotated approximately 90 degrees along with the nose wheel oleo strut. This rotation caused the strut to fail, leading to the propeller making contact with the runway surface. There were no fatalities and no injuries reported in the incident.
The investigation
SACAA AIID investigators examined the aircraft's maintenance history and the physical condition of the landing gear. Records indicated that the most recent Mandatory Periodic Inspection (MPI) had been completed on 18 November 2001, at 2393.0 airframe hours. At the time of the accident, the aircraft had accumulated an additional 61.0 flying hours since that inspection.
Upon physical inspection of the nose gear assembly, investigators identified that the centre bolt of the nose wheel torque link had failed.