Another brown stain in my shorts,,

B

bahama flier

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Jan 15, 2014
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143
Location
Deland, Florida
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bahama flier
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KDED
I have had several interesting landing in the BAHAMAS over the years, after about 90 trips or so.

Recently I was making a landing in North Eleuthera and just as all seemed to be going well, my front cargo door flew open. If this has ever happened to you, you must have survived, because many have not, and I will explain.

When the door flew open, at first it just scared the crap out of me, the door then became a rudder and turned my airplane sideways, the door blocked my view of the runway, did I mention I was about twenty feet from touching down... trying to regain my heading the door now became a large flap and tried to be an airbrake, and did a good job of it as I slowed fast and dropped making a hard landing, at least I was on the runway.

It seems a pin which the lock hooks onto broke and now you know the rest of the story. Since I was in the Bahamas, I made a Bahamian fix on the door, I used a nail.

I have been told that cargo doors have caused crashes when they have come open in the air, if I was up at 7500 feet I don't know what I could have done, but try to ride it out. Yes I was very lucky.
 
What plane were you in at the time.??

I had just rotated in a Chieftain when the air stairs dropped down with a bang. Then the plane yawed left as dust started swirling around inside. I had about 1200 pounds of Pepsi loaded inside.

My first thought was ... ''Who just ran into me.??''

I stayed in the pattern, called for the trucks to roll out, (to give them something to do) landed and had maintenance check out the door, then took off again with the load of Pepsi triple mailers headed for Buckland.
 
Zeldman said:
What plane were you in at the time.??

I had just rotated in a Chieftain when the air stairs dropped down with a bang. Then the plane yawed left as dust started swirling around inside. I had about 1200 pounds of Pepsi loaded inside.

My first thought was ... ''Who just ran into me.??''

I stayed in the pattern, called for the trucks to roll out, (to give them something to do) landed and had maintenance check out the door, then took off again with the load of Pepsi triple mailers headed for Buckland.
Click to expand...


I'm glad you said 1200 lb of Pepsi and not 1200 lb of Coke
 
Who designs cargo doors that force themselves OPEN in flight if the latch or lock fails? Seems like even a dullard would design them to stay closed with airflow to prevent just such a situation. I know that design limitations prevent a perfect solution, but that one seems downright awful.
 
I was driving a Cherokee Six, front hatch opened, at a higher altitude I think I could have recovered, but the hatch door would have ripped off before long I suppose. When the door flew open, it caused a really loud noise or it was my pucker factor reached the sound barrier.
 
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