Cessna Stationair/Turbo Stationair 6
Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 22; Flight Crew Total 600; Flight Crew Type 550
Situational Awareness; Fatigue
Ground Event / Encounter Ground Strike - Aircraft; Ground Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Aircraft Aircraft Damaged; Flight Crew Regained Aircraft Control
Weather; Human Factors
As I was landing; I experienced a strong gust of wind that caused me to momentarily lose control of the aircraft resulting in a hard landing. Moments after touchdown; while still in a nose up 'landing flare' configuration; a strong gust of wind hit my aircraft causing an extreme upward pitch and lift back off the runway surface. As I nosed over to prevent a stall; I over-corrected resulting in a hard nose wheel strike; and an ensuing 'porpoise' bounce. I bounced a second time before fully re-gaining control of the aircraft. Fortunately there were no injuries though I did sustain damage to the nose gear. As I've considered the events leading up to this hard landing; I believe the important lessons to learn are that there can be personal performance degradation after a long day of flying. While the gust of wind struck at an unwelcome phase of flight; the reality is that my imperfect reaction was possibly compounded by a long day of flying around weather and fighting strong headwinds that increased the flight time beyond what was originally planned. In the future; I will stick to 'personal maximum' hours of flying so that I will be fresh even in the last minutes of a flight.
The pilot of a Cessna 206 experienced a strong wind gust during landing resulting in a bounce and subsequent nose gear damage.