Check Those Door Latches
Before Each Takeoff!
A former RV-10 owner saw a write up I did from early this
week and that prompted him to call me today. He's a
professional pilot, with many many thousand hours of experience,
and is a CFI (and more). He said he hadn't posted anything
previously because it is indeed embarrassing to tell a story
of poor preparation...things like missing something on a
checklist and then having an incident. But reading the
write up he felt compelled to share his story. He's not
involved in our online community any more, but asked me
if I'd mind telling it for him. (And no, to make sure this
isn't mis-attributed, it was not the famous red/white
plane of Vic's)
The basic story is simple. A passenger was along, and as
they taxied along, they were less "sterile cockpit" than
what you may prefer. This caused them to overlook the
checklist item of verifying the doors closed and latched.
They got their VFR takeoff clearance, and as they rotated,
the door came up. His headset was twisted sideways, as your
body's edge is a little in the air stream when this happen, so he
quickly moved to put his headset back on,
and as he looked up at the door, it departed the aircraft.
With 8000' of runway, there was room to do a gentle
landing, and taxi back to grab the door. The issue is,
he said it was an extremely rattling event...much like
an "explosion" to use his words, when that door opened.
He believed that it was startling enough that some day, a door opening
event would cause a bad accident....not
because the plane flew poorly (he said it flew just
great without the door), but because the pilot will
be too startled and may react inappropriately.
Now, although not much has been written on forums about
RV-10's and doors, it's pretty well known to some that
there have indeed been a handful of RV-10 door incidents
where the door was either torn off or nearly torn off,
due to improper latching. I'm not sure how many...probably
under 10, but over 5. This is just a guess, but I'd
have to say that I believe this is about the only mechanical
type issue we've seen that has caused damage to a plane.
So, it's something to absolutely take seriously with your
checklist.
Does the RV-10 need a door redesign? Well,
it would be a lie to say you couldn't design a better door
system, but, it is what it is. In reality, although
the doors have this potential, if the pilot is diligent
you'll very likely never see an incident, and this pilot
knows that. He knew he screwed up. Van's also knew their
design wasn't perhaps as ideal as a Cirrus, for instance,
but it is a simple design that a homebuilder can handle
easily. Van's has known this for a long time, and they
came out with their door latch warning system just to
combat this problem with inattentive pilots. It monitors
the door pins and there are lights and a buzzer to let
you know if the pins aren't secured properly. Given
that addition, there's no reason you should have to have as much
worry. This pilot did not have that system
installed because he felt he may become too reliant on
the sensing hardware, rather than a good checklist
procedure....and hardware fails too. Well, as is easy
to guess...pilots probably fail more often than hardware
does, and that's what happened here. It's something
that could happen to any of us.
I write this all here as a reminder from him to pay
attention to this item very closely in your piloting.
It is the one known issue that you really have to
watch for. But once those doors are latched and the
roll pin is seated tightly in the latch mechanism,
it is also true that there is no reason you should
have a door come off, so you should not be overly
alarmed at the mere potential.
Check the doors, and
instill it in your families to all participate in the
door pin check. Install the latch warning system and
use it. Also, thanks go to our
former RV-10 pal who was willing to share his story
and a learning experience with you all.