Gear Issue Tecnam P92 Echo Super

[foresterpoole]

Well, it appears the only light sport rental in this area is out of commission for a while. I went by the airport last week to put in some stick/rudder time and was surprised to see the Tecnam P92 I did most of my training in sitting stripped bare missing a tail. After talking with the CFI who was on board the aircraft during the incident and the mechanic trying to put humpty-dumpty back together it was a gear issue and tail strike. Here is how it went down: A student was performing a landing at the end of a lesson, the landing was not abnormal with a seemingly soft touchdown, however, after the mains touched down the left (pilot side) wheel and tire assembly separated from the gear (sheared pin or axle???), this lead to a loss of directional control. The aircraft veered off the runway and spun (kind of like a ground loop) onto the grass and into a slight depression where it came to rest. The tail struck the ground during the incident and managed to crinkle up the skin pretty substantially. It also appeared to me that the aircraft had damage to where the gear attached to the fuselage, most likely from stress. Supposedly, the aircraft can be fixed and parts have been ordered to replace the damaged sections, however, with COVID and the factory in Italy, the parts are back ordered and no timetable has been given. Luckily, no one was injured and pilot error has not been suspected as a contributing factor. I was planning on getting into the Tecnam to get some time for a CFI-S rating, I thought it would be a great way to make a few bucks on the side and pay for my flying hobby. With the current situation, that's on the back burner so into a 172 I climbed with a CFII recently furlowed from the airlines to work on an instrument rating I had to abandon after the only CFII in the area went to the airlines.

So if you've read this far, my question is: what could have caused the wheel to separate from the gear leg? This aircraft is used for flight training, and has about 6,000 hours total time on the air frame. I was thinking fatigue from all those landings and possibly shoddy maintenance, but I'm not sure....

[JJ Campbell]

Since it was a rental that requires 100 hour condition inspection, I'd also guess sloppy, half-hearted maintenance. I was fortunate enough to do my primary training on Tecnam P92s at a school that did superb 100 hour inspections - 3 mechanics for 3 days. I also escaped the Winter weather with a trip to a school in Florida that also used Tecnam aircraft. Talk about "rode hard and put away wet" - one guy 4 hours, inspection done!

[ShawnM]

In my opinion it could have been one of three things but without pics it's hard to say. The gear leg itself could have fractured and broke off close to the axle bolt holes, the axle could have fractured and broke off the leg or the hardwar holding the axle to the gear leg could have broke. With 6000 hours on the airframe that's a lot of student abuse. These small cracks/fractures can easily go unnoticed during a condition inspection if one is trying to get it back in the air making money again. Hopefully you'll learn soon enough what happened.