M-5
Flight Crew Private
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 11; Flight Crew Total 115; Flight Crew Type 40
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Ground Event / Encounter Other / Unknown
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Regained Aircraft Control
Environment - Non Weather Related; Human Factors
With two souls aboard; returning to airstrip; arriving at sunset with clear skies and calm wind. Using right hand pattern approach; descended to short final altitude of 750 feet MSL; monitored sink rate/airspeed to intercept target landing spot. Determined at approximately 650 feet MSL that sink rate was to steep and did not get enough power restored to mitigate imminent hard landing; aircraft bounced once and power arrested any further contact with the ground. Continued with go-around and set up second approach. Repeated procedure to target landing spot; landing satisfactorily and rolling out. Near the halfway point of the roll out; the right wing began to slowly drop; maintained straight directional control and continued to the turnaround point at end of airstrip. Just before the aircraft could be turned; the right gear leg completed its impending collapse and the wing tip fell to the ground; and the prop struck the airstrip surface. There were no injuries and no disturbance inside the aircraft. Due to the initial hard landing; the right gear leg was compromised and during the subsequent landing rollout phase that weakness manifested itself in a collapse. Knowing how hard we hit the first time; there can be no fault in the design of the aircraft and credit the aircraft with allowing us to safely land with limited damage. It is possible that the waning light contributed to misjudging the sink rate to the target landing spot.
The pilot of a Maule M5 reported a hard landing that resulted in a subsequent landing gear failure.