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Atlas / NTSB / ERA22LA164

NTSB CAROL · Event

Event ERA22LA164

2022-03-17 Lake City, Florida, United States Airport · 15FL Minor 1 aircraft Status: Completed

Registry · N447P

FAA Aircraft Registry record.

Make / Model

VAN'S AIRCRAFT RV-6A

Engine

LYCOMING 0-320 SERIES (180 hp)

Seats / Engines

2 seats · 1 engine

Last airworthiness date

20040801

ADS-B equipped

Yes — Mode-S A565E3

Registrant of record

JONES THOMAS C

Source: FAA Aircraft Registry (releasable master file).

Aircraft involved

Probable cause & findings

The pilot’s improper landing flare, which resulted in overload bending of the nose landing gear leg and subsequent nose-over.

Factual narrative

The pilot stated he was previously aware of the nose-over issue of the various models of the aircraft, and as such was very cautious during landing. He attempted to recover after bouncing on a grass runway but on the second touchdown with aft elevator control input, the nose landing gear dug in and the airplane nosed over, which resulted in substantial damage to the rudder. He indicated that he should have done an immediate go-around as a result of the bounced landing, and not attempted to recover. According to the photographs and information provided by airplane owner/pilot, the nose gear leg was bent aft about 60° beginning about 2.25 inches from the landing gear mount. Equipment that was attached to the nose gear leg was permanently deformed. The airplane was equipped with upgraded nose gear leg and nose wheel fork that were specified by Van’s Aircraft Service Bulletin (SB) 07-11-09. Those components were designed to reduce the likelihood of fork axle-to-runway surface contact during nose gear overload conditions. Source: NTSB Aviation Accident Database Retrieved: 2026-02-12

NTSB Findings

Hierarchical cause / factor breakdown from the FAA bulk avdata database. Each finding tagged C (Cause) or F (Factor).

  • Personnel issues-Action/decision-Info processing/decision-Decision making/judgment-Pilot
  • Personnel issues-Task performance-Use of equip/info-Aircraft control-Pilot
  • Aircraft-Aircraft oper/perf/capability-Performance/control parameters-Landing flare-Incorrect use/operation
  • Aircraft-Aircraft systems-Landing gear system-Nose/tail landing gear-Capability exceeded

Verbatim from NTSB's published report. Source file NTSB_2022_ERA22LA164.txt. Findings + structured fields enriched from FAA avall.mdb. Full investigation docket on data.ntsb.gov ↗.

Related research

What the literature says.

Academic papers and agency reports matching this event's aircraft type or causal vocabulary (go-around). Sourced from NASA NTRS, NTSB Safety Studies, FAA CAMI, AOPA Air Safety Institute, Embry-Riddle Scholarly Commons, arXiv, and the Semantic Scholar academic graph.

Browse the full corpus — academia portal ↗