Door Opening in flight?

[Apelsin Elise]

Originally Posted by Red Air Rambo

on the demo flight with a so called experienced pilot / mechanic climbing through 10K the boor blew open, he said the upper door took a chunk of the leading edge of the wing out and the lower door damaged the strut along with the door window blowing out, not a good day.

Frankly, the whole story sounds just a little bit strange.

On my '79 P337H the door latching mechanism is very robust. Bottom half has two latching points, upper half has four. Both halves latch separately, upper half overlaps the bottom one reinforcing the latching points. It is impossible to latch the upper half if the bottom half is not closed/latched properly. One the upper part, it is impossible to rotate the handle all the way if the upper half latches did not engage properly. It is a well designed and strong system.

In order for both door halves to blow open all 6 latches or 2 separate latching mechanisms need to fail. I am having hard time imagining how this could happen. Even if the cabin pressure was over the limit and the door gave in, only the upper part should open. As soon as the door seal is breached, the pressure differential goes away. Why would the bottom half open then?

I have never heard of a P-Skymaster door opening in flight before.

It will be great if we can get more information about the incident.

What year was the P-Skymaster in question?

Any chance there were some pictures taken?

[Red Air Rambo]

I called the guy selling the plane, turns out the "experienced" pilot did not slide the safety latch forward or lock the safety pins down.

[Ernie Martin]

The upper door has flown open twice on my 337G normally aspirated. Both times pilot error, where I failed to lock the safety pin down.

I share the view of others that the mechanism is robust and open doors are almost certainly pilot error. Locking the pin down is now not only part of my checklist but I always tell whoever is on the copilot seat to remind me before takeoff.

Ernie