20231020018199I

Student pilot was practicing maneuvers for an upcoming checkride. They were going to go practice landings. They extended the landing gear and hear/felt a thud noise come from the floor in between the two cockpit seats. The gear indication light was green, as well as the secondary means of in the cockpit landing gear identification was saying the mains were down and secured. However, on the left engine nacelle there is a mirror in which you can see the nose gear. They looked in the mirror and saw that the nose gear was free swinging and not locked into place. It was not properly locked and secured down. They attempted to get the gear to go forward and lock through in air maneuvers and control inputs. They had no success and conducted an inoperable landing gear landing. The instructor contacted various mechanics at the flight school and the owner of the school to try and see if they had any guidance. They instructed to go to a towered airport and to notify ATC of the situation prior to arrival. They did this at the Saint Paul Downtown airport (kstp). They did a low approach of the runway where they had the tower verify that our mains were down. They verified the mains were down and locked but also verified the nose gear was “cocked” and not locked down. They then entered right traffic for runway 31. Just prior to touchdown on 31, they killed the engines and touched the mains down, and held back pressure to keep the nose off for as long as possible until they lost speed and the nose of the plane tipped forward and skidded along the runway. They came to a stop and exited the aircraft unharmed. There was damage to the fiberglass nose cone and the cabin heater exhaust pipe from the runway slide. Inspection showed a mounting tab on the nose gear assembly for the extension rod broke off.