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I fly out of a runway that I've said doesn't have accelerate/stop distance for the plane. The other day, I put this to the test, and found that, at least for the given conditions, I was right.
The runway was slightly damp on this morning, and the plane loaded up. My passenger got in and closed the door, something that this passenger frequently does (followed by locking it). The passenger didn't lock it, and then didn't tell me to lock it. This pilot passenger also normally sits right seat, and was sitting in back on this day. Start up, run-up, etc., everything's fine. Locking the door isn't on my checklist as it's part of the flow - close door, lock door. I've always stated that if a door opens on the takeoff roll to keep on rolling - an aborted takeoff is more dangerous, and a door popped open isn't dangerous, just noisy. Leave the door alone, go once around the pattern, and land. I have had this happen on more than one occasion, and have made the right decision every time confidently and without fail.
Coming down the runway right at about rotation speed, I looked over for the final check of the engine oil pressure gauge. Low oil pressure will cause an abort on the takeoff, and rightly so. Better to go off the end of the runway than have an engine seize in flight. As I was looking at the oil pressure gauge, I heard an unusual whistle, looked over, and saw the door latch in the "unlocked" position. I immediately aborted the takeoff with hard braking, and realized this was a bad idea, but stuck with it knowing that to reverse my decision would definitely result in a bad crash.
Despite hard braking that was very firm with no flat spots or locked wheels, I ended up going off the end of the runway. The way this airport is set up, fortunately there are no gates, but the runway does butt up against a perpendicular street. By the grace of God, there were no cars on the road when I entered it, and I came to a stop in the middle of the 2-lane road. I whipped the plane around and got it back on the airport and shut down. No cars stopped, but I'm sure that the people driving needed new pants when they saw a plane barrel into the road, and then turn around and come back.
The brakes were smoking, so we put fans on them and gave a good look over the plane and found nothing wrong with it. Very lucky.
I thought about this for a while and realized why, in a split second, I made the wrong decision when I'd made the right one more than once before in the same situation.
1) The loading routine was different from normal, hence why the door didn't get locked. Normally it's immediate close and lock. Since it was a flow item not on the checklist, it didn't get caught.
2) The door popped open from this as I was looking for a signal to abort the takeoff. Although it wasn't the signal I was looking for, it got confused in my brain. Having a split second in which to make the decision, I opted for the wrong one
3) Because the runway didn't have sufficient accelerate/stop distance and I was pretty much right at rotation speed, went off the end
I've since added checking the door as locked to the checklist to help prevent this. I'm also going to adjust my glance at the oil pressure to be earlier in the takeoff roll than when I did it. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, plane's fine, and I learned from it. I'm glad that I didn't reverse my decision to abort the takeoff once I realized I didn't have enough runway. This would have resulted in what likely would've been a fatal crash, definitely bent metal and probably a total loss on the plane. Once you make a decision like that, you need to stick with it.
One could argue another corrective action would be restricting myself to longer runways. There are reasons why I end up using some of the shorter airports I do, so it's part of a calculated risk that goes into that decision process. That said, I may consider it.
With thousands of hours of flight time, this is the first time I've made a bad decision that resulted in this level of embarrassment and potential for things to go really bad. As I've always said, we're all susceptible to bad decisions. The best thing that you can do is remain proficient and set yourself up for success.
The runway was slightly damp on this morning, and the plane loaded up. My passenger got in and closed the door, something that this passenger frequently does (followed by locking it). The passenger didn't lock it, and then didn't tell me to lock it. This pilot passenger also normally sits right seat, and was sitting in back on this day. Start up, run-up, etc., everything's fine. Locking the door isn't on my checklist as it's part of the flow - close door, lock door. I've always stated that if a door opens on the takeoff roll to keep on rolling - an aborted takeoff is more dangerous, and a door popped open isn't dangerous, just noisy. Leave the door alone, go once around the pattern, and land. I have had this happen on more than one occasion, and have made the right decision every time confidently and without fail.
Coming down the runway right at about rotation speed, I looked over for the final check of the engine oil pressure gauge. Low oil pressure will cause an abort on the takeoff, and rightly so. Better to go off the end of the runway than have an engine seize in flight. As I was looking at the oil pressure gauge, I heard an unusual whistle, looked over, and saw the door latch in the "unlocked" position. I immediately aborted the takeoff with hard braking, and realized this was a bad idea, but stuck with it knowing that to reverse my decision would definitely result in a bad crash.
Despite hard braking that was very firm with no flat spots or locked wheels, I ended up going off the end of the runway. The way this airport is set up, fortunately there are no gates, but the runway does butt up against a perpendicular street. By the grace of God, there were no cars on the road when I entered it, and I came to a stop in the middle of the 2-lane road. I whipped the plane around and got it back on the airport and shut down. No cars stopped, but I'm sure that the people driving needed new pants when they saw a plane barrel into the road, and then turn around and come back.
The brakes were smoking, so we put fans on them and gave a good look over the plane and found nothing wrong with it. Very lucky.
I thought about this for a while and realized why, in a split second, I made the wrong decision when I'd made the right one more than once before in the same situation.
1) The loading routine was different from normal, hence why the door didn't get locked. Normally it's immediate close and lock. Since it was a flow item not on the checklist, it didn't get caught.
2) The door popped open from this as I was looking for a signal to abort the takeoff. Although it wasn't the signal I was looking for, it got confused in my brain. Having a split second in which to make the decision, I opted for the wrong one
3) Because the runway didn't have sufficient accelerate/stop distance and I was pretty much right at rotation speed, went off the end
I've since added checking the door as locked to the checklist to help prevent this. I'm also going to adjust my glance at the oil pressure to be earlier in the takeoff roll than when I did it. Fortunately, nobody got hurt, plane's fine, and I learned from it. I'm glad that I didn't reverse my decision to abort the takeoff once I realized I didn't have enough runway. This would have resulted in what likely would've been a fatal crash, definitely bent metal and probably a total loss on the plane. Once you make a decision like that, you need to stick with it.
One could argue another corrective action would be restricting myself to longer runways. There are reasons why I end up using some of the shorter airports I do, so it's part of a calculated risk that goes into that decision process. That said, I may consider it.
With thousands of hours of flight time, this is the first time I've made a bad decision that resulted in this level of embarrassment and potential for things to go really bad. As I've always said, we're all susceptible to bad decisions. The best thing that you can do is remain proficient and set yourself up for success.