This is an excerpt from a report made to the Aviation Safety Reporting System. The narrative is written by the pilot, rather than FAA or NTSB officials. To maintain anonymity, many details, such as aircraft model or airport, are often scrubbed from the reports.
Experienced in-flight door opening due to malfunction of the Beech 33’s door latch strike plate 30 seconds after departure passing 1,200 feet.
Initiated a 180° turn back to ZZZ. Attempted to contact our initial controller on 125.70 that we needed to return to the airport. He became confused and did not know who we were and had us “ident” and then became distracted with other traffic in the area and never called me back.
By then I was south of the airport and Runway XXL was a better option for a safe landing. I contacted the south pattern frequency of 119.20 since I had no reply from 125.70 and she was not too happy about me being on downwind now and let me know that “I was in the ZZZ Class D without a clearance” although we never did leave the ZZZ Class D airspace because the door popped open just after takeoff.
From there I was cleared to land Runway XXL and contacted the tower and then called ATC after landing.
I can say it was a very busy day and the controllers had their hands full, although the controller losing site of an aircraft that had just departed his runway less than 30 seconds made the situation a little more dramatic than it needed to be.
Primary Problem: Aircraft
ACN: 1934467
I agree it is not an emergency, but if it is urgent then a “Pan, Pan” will get the attention you need. Based on the aircraft involved, I might have continued departure and contacted approach and informed them I needed to return. But it looks like everything worked out just fine.
I can’t imagine a scenario where a transport category airplane had a cockpit escape hatch pop open in flight and they did not declare an emergency. Emergency means priority handling and puts ATC on notice the PIC may deviate from standard practice and rules as needed to protect the aircraft. In busy airspace like this you should absolutely declare and work it out on the ground. There are plenty of fatal accident reports in the database where an open door resulted in hull loss.
This kind of stuff happens regularly at kfmy.
Definitely do not want that to happen in a piper Aerostar
Doors doors doors tried of people dying trying to close them. Fly the plane and go land. From the biggest airliner to the smallest plane they all fly!!! To many wife’s tail on how they don’t fly! They fly!! Yes you might get turbulence over the tail but still controllable. If you fly with me I will pop the door to demonstrate it’s controllable. Just fly the plane and add 10-20kts to approach speed and land flaps up for the twins. Yes the yoke will shake but you still have controllability!! Fly the plane!!
thanks jim grated on my ears too
now if we could fix pedal and peddle
or brake and break life would b good
first world problem but hey fix what ucan
kw and kwh are just too much for most
Flew a training Cherokee that popped the door regularly. Main thing back then was not letting charts fly out.
I have never had the latch mechanism malfunction in a Beech door. I have had the person closing the door fail to correctly latch it and me as PIC fail to adequately check.
Door coming open is not a big deal. It is not an emergency. Do not try to close it because you can’t!! Fly with an instructor who will pop the door on you. We do it for our initial participants at our Bonanza clinics. FLY THE PLANE!
That you say “FLY THE PLANE” and “not an emergency” in the same sentence is paradoxical. When in doubt, when distracted, when you might need priority handling, when you can’t follow SOPs because of something going on with the airplane, DECLARE and sort it out once you are safely back on the ground,
We had a pop open when leaving Sedona in our A36. Had to do a go-around but sure was a surprise.
The majority of my hours are in Pipers. I’ve had Cherokee doors pop open; they’re hard to get closed in flight, but not dangerous. I never had a door pop open on a Piper Aztec, but was told that it disrupts the airflow enough, that it is a safety issue. I was told that the Aztec will not fly, if the door were to come completely off.
Having a door pop open, distracting yes, emergency requiring an immediate return to the airport, nope.
Observation: Since one doesn’t necessarily know what is going to blow out that door and who or what it might hit, this is an urgent thing for safety reasons. May not be an Emergency specifically for the Beech 33, but could become one for aircraft below where some hard object takes out their windshield or damages some flight control, wrecks a rotor blade on some rotary wing aircraft….. What about people or vehicles on the ground? All of this has to be taken into consideration. One might find they had become an accidental bomber….
In reading the report as filed, I noticed that an emergency was not declared, he was just trying to get back into the sequence to land to take care of the situation. It was the controllers that had lost situational awareness and failed to maintain communications.
Site is a place. Sight is eyeball contact.
Busy day and rushed pilot failed to properly close and check door. Often the doors on 33, 35 & 36 Bonanzas get sprung and extra care is needed to get all the latch hooks have engaged. Barns have same door issues..