ERA21LA120

According to the owner of the experimental amateur-built airplane, a (light sport) flight instructor was providing transition training to him after he had recently purchased the airplane. The owner and flight instructor flew from where the airplane was based, an airport with a turf runway that was 2,400 ft-long and 100 ft-wide, to a nearby airport with a paved runway and performed several practice takeoffs and landings. They then returned to the departure airport, and the flight instructor was demonstrating a landing to the turf runway for the airplane owner. The flight instructor described that he landed the airplane about 850 feet beyond the runway threshold, and that it rolled an additional 650 feet before the nosewheel touched down. Within 40 feet of the nosewheel touching the runway, the airplane suddenly nosed over. The airplane’s vertical stabilizer was substantially damaged. The owner, and another witness to the accident, both described that following the accident they observed two ground scars on the runway that were 14 and 21 feet in length, that reached a depth of 5 inches and 12 inches, respectively. The second 12-inch-deep scar ended just before the airplane nosed over and came to rest. Given this information, it is likely that the flight instructor’s improper soft-field landing technique resulted in excessive weight being placed on the nose landing gear during the landing, resulting the nosewheel digging into the turf runway, and ultimately resulting in the nose over during the landing.