Open Door

Al Gietzen

Here's Al's write-up of his "door open in flight" incident.

Of course I was very disappointed not to make the fly-in, and other stops planned on the trip. But I don’t want anyone to be alarmed – I’m fine, and I flew the plane back home today with an improvised door.

We were about an hour out, cruising happily along at 9500’ and 170 KTAS, when suddenly there was a noise and lots of wind blowing and the pilot side door was gone. I have no idea why it came unlatched – I had a double detent spring which had always kept it solidly in the latched position.

It took only a few moments to determine that the plane was controllable (meaning the door had departed), and that there was no prop vibration meaning there was no prop damage. With a few moments to adapt to the new aerodynamics; it was a matter of flying to the nearest airport about 10 miles away. Only when we got there, we found it was a small strip (looked like dirt, although I found later it was paved) in the middle of the desert with no structures of any kind anywhere in sight. Since the plane was flying stably, I decided to head off to another about 20 miles away; and made a normal landing.

Upon landing we noted that the rear window on the passenger side had a large hole in it. Apparently as the door ripped off it was swung over the top, and the strake extension slammed into the window; and from there the door bounced clear of prop. The front hinge mounting pad was torn out; the rear hinge separated at the pin. The prop had a couple of minor marks on it apparently made by pieces of the plexiglass from the window.

The plane was about 150 miles from home; and it is now safely back in it’s hangar. All in all, the damage is not too bad; just a lot of work to do to replace the door with my custom strake extensions, etc.

Al