20100824044089A

Student on first solo flight making first solo landing initially landed on all three gears but the aircraft bounced up off the runway. The aircraft contacted the runway the second time nose wheel first and bounced up again at a high angle of attack. The student pilot stated that he did not think the aircraft had the energy to go around at that point and that he pushed forward on the pitch control nosing the aircraft over. The final contact with the runway was nose gear first and the propeller strike marks on the ground indicated propeller contact just prior to nose wheel contact, estimated to be at least 25 degrees nose down. The student pilot and his instructor witnessing that accident from the ground state that the aircraft nosed over from a high of at least 5 feet above the runway. On this contact, the carbon fiber nose wheel yoke sheared at its upper mounting base and folded back approximately 120 degrees until the nose tire pressed against the nose strut. The contact with the ground was now the front lower most portion of the bottom of the nose strut assembly. It gouged the runway and then scraped the runway with the bound nose tire skidding over this scraping. Diagonal propeller strikes leaving one-inch wide marks continued until the aircraft stopped with the angle of the diagonal decreasing as the aircraft slowed. The force of the impact after the nose wheel yoke failed was up the nose landing gear actuator, which mounts, in the upper aft portion of the nose wheel box section causing it to become completely disbonded from the firewall and the fuselage. This then pushed back and up into the airframe disbanding the pedal frames, cracking the first cross-member frame, damaging the beam below the instrument panel and the middle console.