NASA

After trying to correct the path of the plane it became obvious that the plane had reached a point of no return and was going to go off the left side of the runway.

I do not know why the other pilot thought it was a good idea to fly 500 feet above the ZZZ Bravo without communicating with anyone. I get that it’s legal, but it wasn’t very smart.

In hindsight, I should have kept my IFR flight plan open until I landed and cancelled on the ground. I felt that I was being a courteous user of the National Airspace System by succumbing to the pressure from ATC to cancel “quickly” and cancelling as soon as I was VMC, but by doing so I allowed a situation to develop that had more risk than if I had waited and cancelled on the ground.

I was quite surprised by how much the door impacted the controllability of the airplane. While the door being partially open should not in itself be an emergency, the controllability issue created the potential for a loss of separation in the high density traffic area.

I was in a left turn, looking off my left wing, when I noticed a shadow above me. I immediately rolled out of my turn, seeing the jet in front of me. I was shaken up, because I had no visual of the traffic, until after their passage.

This near-miss brought to my attention my lack of taking action to prevent it.

I was at a loss as to how this could have happened as I consider myself a very cautious and safe pilot.

Upon turning to final, I got an iPad alert of traffic. I initially thought it was the system reporting me to myself.

They quickly discovered the radio stack was sagging in the rear and the vent tray for the factory radio stack was resting on the controls. They also indicated the straps were not secured.