Amateur/Home Built/Experimental
Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 2; Flight Crew Total 2500; Flight Crew Type 1934
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Ground Event / Encounter Ground Strike - Aircraft
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged
Aircraft
I made a normal approach and landing. During roll out the weld between the nose gear strut and the nose gear fork broke. The nose wheel went forward under the cowl. The aircraft slid to a stop on the nose gear strut. The right wing tip contacted the runway during the deceleration. The NTSB was sent pictures and determined this was an incident.This problem has happened to several other Zenithair CH 801 aircraft. If I had performed more than a visual inspection at the last condition inspection I may have been able to detect the crack prior to failure. Or I could have increased the strength of this connection which would have prevented this incident. In looking at the broken weld some of the weld had failed earlier and was rusty.
Upon landing structural failure of nose gear resulted in a ground strike.