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

Mark Riley

Mark reported taht the buyer of his first plane had an incident as well.

The buyer of my SERG forgot to latch the copilot side door prior to takeoff from Santa Barbara at night. The door departed the aircraft mid takeoff and destroyed the prop, necessitating a forced landing and heavy damage. I would strongly recommend against opening a door on an Elite in flight.