So one of my mechanics was moving our plane 3 feet (backwards) to close up the hangar and the upper trunnion on the nose gear failed, causing the gear to collapse *forward*, the nose to collapse, etc. The face of the barrel of the trunnion literally cracked and peeled off in a way I've never seen. Have any of you ever seen this type of damage?

You may want to have a lab look at that trunnion to determine whether it was cracked before hand or whether the guy on the tug overloaded it.

Overloaded it while moving it 3 feet? This is why Im scratching my head.

I'm tempted to think maybe he exceeded the turn limits while moving it to the hangar, cracking it, then it fully failed once he tried to move it again, but I have no way of really proving any of that.

A metallurgical lab can tell if there was a new crack, old crack, or no crack. They can tell if a crack is a fatigue crack or a massive overload. They can probably tell where the failure started. I have worked with these kinds of labs before, doing forensics. If you have insurance, then you can let them deal with it, if not, you may need to show that it was not the airplanes fault. If I can help with the forensics, you can email me at kristin@theaviatrix.com

Looking at your third picture, you can see marks in the steering bell rank where it has made contact with the steel angle brace which supports the alignment roller. Hard to say when they happened but they certainly appear to be fresh.
What type of tug was being used?

Clarence

 

Tim,

Sorry to see this.

Ditto all the above remarks.

Appears the props were stopped in normal position and had no damage - hope that's the case.

Kristin's comment on the insurance company reminds me that the insurance adjuster may need direction from you to do this. If your insurance company pays, your premiums will likely go up for a long time. If they find another insurance company at fault ...

Did they try to tug it with the brakes locked? looks like theyit was pulled apart..

No prop strike thank goodness.

Wheels were not chocked and brakes were off.

We have for sale all the nose gear parts from PA30 serial 30-1510 that had about 3000 hrs TT when landed gear up. ahpowers@aol.com N88AP ics 2978.

 

Just wanted to follow up on this. This damage was traced to exceeding the turn limits of the nose gear, which cracked the upper trunnion and ultimately failed in the fashion seen in the photos.

For those of you in the mid-Atlantic -- I can't say enough good things about the people at Plane Care, LLC in Hagerstown, MD (KHGR.) I replaced the trunnion and ferried it to them and they took care of the rest. The front end looks almost new from the outside and now she's back in business. When I found a donor plane in another town (needed a bunch of stringers, ribs, etc in the nose) they even went there themselves and removed the entire nose firewall forward so the rivets were drilled properly and wouldn't be a mess when attached to my plane. I highly recommend them.

Tim

Tim,

Well, that is happy news! Thanks for sharing.

So much more fun to be ready to fly than to be looking for parts.

That's great news Tim. Glad you're back up and running. Good Intel on Plane Care.

- Charles