IAD01LA004

The pilot said he landed the airplane on the sod strip, and that all three landing gear touched down at the same time. He said the airplane bounced, touched down, and the airplane nosed over and came to rest inverted. The nose landing gear was separated from the airplane. Examination of the fracture surfaces on the nose landing gear components revealed that all failures were due to overstress. The pilot said there were no mechanical deficiencies with the airplane prior to the accident.

On October 15, 2000, at 0800 eastern daylight time, a Yakovlev 52, N21CY, was substantially damaged when it nosed over after landing on a sod runway at the High View Airport (61VA), Berryville, Virginia. The certificated private pilot/owner was not injured. Visual meteorological conditions prevailed for the personal flight that originated at the Winchester Regional Airport (OKV), Winchester, Virginia, about 0745. No flight plan was filed for the flight conducted under 14 CFR Part 91.

In a written statement, the pilot said the purpose of the flight was to fly to High View, pick up a passenger, and return to Winchester. He said the weather was clear, the winds were calm, and that he had landed there approximately 25 times in the past. According to the pilot:

"Upon entering a left hand pattern, I checked the wind sock below and again verified calm winds. The approach was perfectly normal. Landing checklist was run through both on downwind and on final. I last checked airspeed crossing the end of the strip and it was right on 160 [kilometers per hour], just what it should be. The landing configuration of a YAK-52 is very much like that of a tail dragger three point landing - nose high easing back on the stick continually until touchdown. I remember touching down the mains on the crest of first small knoll and the plane becoming airborne slightly. Because the strip drops at that point, the little bounce is not uncommon. I just kept flaring and waited for the plane to touch and roll out. However, when the plane settled in and the nose wheel came down, I first realized something was not right up front. Something was digging into the ground, the nose was low and the next thing I was upside down and the ground was crashing through the canopy."

In a telephone interview, the pilot said: "I touched the mains first. Then, when it came up and back down, that's when all three [landing gear] hit at once."

In his written statement, the pilot described the damage to the airplane. He said:

"The plane was inverted with all gears extended as [were] the flaps. However, the wheel assembly was missing from the front gear. The strut had broken clean and the wheel and yoke were about ten yards away from the plane. There was a trench about thirty yards long where the nose gear without the wheel had dug into the ground before the point when the plane flipped."

The pilot said there were no mechanical deficiencies with the airplane prior to the accident.

The airplane was examined at the High View Airport by two Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aviation safety inspectors. The inspectors documented the damage to the airplane, and recovered the components of the nose landing gear for examination at the Safety Board Materials Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

The damaged components of the nose landing gear were examined at the Safety Board Materials Laboratory in Washington, D.C., on March 12, 2001. According to the metallurgists report, the nose landing gear assembly contained fractures in three areas. The piston was fractured just above the nose wheel yoke, the bolt connecting the upper scissors to the lower scissors was fractured in two locations, and the landing gear brace was fractured through an attachment hole at its aft end. All fractures were typical of overstress separations.

The pilot reported 554 hours of flight experience, 152 hours of which were in the Yak 52. He said that of the 25 landings he had performed at the High View Airport, 15 were in the Yak 52.

The weather at the Eastern West Virginia Regional/Shepherd Airport (MRB), 10 miles north of High View, was scattered clouds at 10,000 feet with an overcast layer at 20,000 feet. The winds were from 220 degrees at 5 knots.