Amateur-built Venture accident near El Paso, Texas, September 28, 2006

The NTSB's narrative final · quoted from the NTSB record

The amateur airplane nosed-over after landing on runway 22 (150-foot wide by 12,020-foot long asphalt runway). Witnesses reported that the airplane was reported to have either "jerked violently to the left" or "wobbled from side to side" upon touchdown. The airplane then continued to taxi down the runway for about 7,000 feet before the airplane nosed-over and came to rest in an inverted position on the runway. Correct air/oil ratio and strut inflation is critical for the proper operation of the landing gear strut. An improperly inflated strut reportedly result's in a "spongy" strut, which can aggravate directional control problems on the airplane. The original nose landing gear consists of a strut with a single-rod steering system and the design is absent gear scissors and/or a shimmy damper. A recommendation issued for the prevention of nose wheel shimming recommends for pilots to "lower the nose tire promptly, and keep it on the ground with forward stick pressure if necessary." The kit manufacturer offers an optional kit to upgrade the main gear strut air/oil ratio, making the strut more "rigid." The landing gear arrangement on the accident airplane was the original configuration, except a small spring had been added to the steering fork and a hydraulic operating steering system, activated by a switch on the control stick, had been added by the builder. However, a scissor-link/shimmy dampener was not added. In addition, the builder had not incorporated the addition of a canopy frame or a rollover bar. The main landing gear struts were also reported to be inflated to about one-and-a-half inches, instead of the recommended three-eighths to one-half inch of extension.

The complete narrative as the NTSB published it. The NTSB's docket holds the report as a PDF and any photographs, statements and other documents from the investigation.