Details are still sketchy on yesterday’s report of a door separation involving a Lancair ES shortly after departing from Leesburg Executive Airport (KJYO), Leesburg, Virginia. The flight was bound for Lawrence Timmerman Airport (KMWC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The pilot/owner, 63-year-old Dan O’Brien, returned to KJYO and made a safe landing.
I don’t think that a pilot’s age should be included in these reports. If a pilot is “young” it implies inexperience: if a pilot is “old” it implies incompetence.
This happens more than you might think to the Lancair. I know one pilot who has had it happen twice to him. I talked to the young fellow who repairs such things and he says he stays very busy reattaching doors to the IVP. The usual cause is not closing the door completely and forgetting to send the locking pins home.
I do not know about the ES, but in the certificated Columbia 300/350/400 and the Cessna TTX, you get a CAS warning if the doors are not secured, plus you can see the pins and easily visually inspect their position as part of the before takeoff checklist.
AFAIK, there has only been one door loss accident in the certificated aircraft, and this one was pilot induced-while flying the pilot noticed that a piece of the rug he used to protect the wing walk while enplaning and deplaning was stuck in the door frame and he decided, against all POH warnings and common sense, to open the door while in flight and pull the carpet in. So, he wrapped the pull-down strap around his arm and opened the door…and you can guess the rest, the door opened completely, tore free of its hinges, and contacted the left horizontal stab on its way to its new home.
The pilot reported the problem to ATC and declined landing at the nearest airport, deciding instead to continue about sixty miles to an “airport where I know they do composite repair work”.
Hey, a__holes, IIIIII am the pilot of this airplane. The author of this article did not ask me a single thing about this incident and has no f____g idea about what happened. I know exactly what happened. Every detail. Stop f__g speculating about sh_t you have no f___g idea about. Stop making aviation just another place where idiots spew sensationalist bull sh_t.
The “pilot owner” was reported without granting permission. That is fu____g bull sh_t, and the journalist should be ashamed. It is F___g ridiculous, and every single cuss word in this post and my last one is intended and should be fully absorbed by the author
It is a crazy world we live in where IDIOTS post ridiculous sh_t and are elevated for doing so…
And if I were within 10 feet of the author I would beat the sh_t out of him. And then rub his face in the mud and query why his mother either didn’t teach him anything or or his thick skull didn’t absorb it.
It’s a sad sad world where people write sensational SH_T to get attention.