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.