Anybody lose a door?

Any DA42 related topics.

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Chris
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Anybody lose a door?

Post by Chris »

Looks like a rear door departed a DA42 while flying near Hyderabad yesterday. No injuries or damage except for the door (and presumably whatever it landed on).

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/c ... chool.html
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Rmateu
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by Rmateu »

The Venezuelan SAR organization has several DA42 Special mission, and one of them lost a door on one of its flight. talking with Mr. Dries here in Venezuela, on the time I was ordering mine, he told me that they found that the safety pin on the other SAR planes were stuck open because of dirt and poor maintenance.
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by neema »

An instructor over here on the west coast told me a passenger accidentally pulled the emergency door release lever and the door promptly flew off. Said it didn't hit the tail and they were able to fly in just fine. Just had a bit of a breeze in the cockpit.
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Rich
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by Rich »

I watch this site:

http://www.asias.faa.gov/pls/apex/f?p=100:93:0::NO:::

and have seen a few passenger door separations on 42's and 40's. (I saw one of each in the same week a few months back.) I understand there actually have been several dozen over the years. But none make the accident databases because the door has so far come off cleanly with no adverse effects on handling characteristics or caused an actual accident or further damage.
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Don
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by Don »

It is a good thing that both the DA 40 and 42's have "T" tails. If a door separates in flight, no worries about it damaging the horizontal stabilizer/elevator which could turn out to be catastrophic.
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thefoxx
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by thefoxx »

While on the topic of losing doors in flight - what about canopies in flight? Specifically the DA20? anyone heard of any occurrances?
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by Steve »

Don wrote:It is a good thing that both the DA 40 and 42's have "T" tails. If a door separates in flight, no worries about it damaging the horizontal stabilizer/elevator which could turn out to be catastrophic.
I wouldn't say "no worries"...

Apparently the departure path of the door does not usually intersect the empennage. I would expect that since the rear door is shaped like an airfoil, it flies over the horizontal tail in most flight regimes. That is not to say all. Suppose you lose it during stall practice? What if you have an engine out on that side in a -42?

Bottom line is that it could go almost anywhere. So maintain your locks and use your checklists. Some of the early losses in DA-40s were caused by taking off with the rear door fully open.

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Don
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by Don »

thefoxx wrote:While on the topic of losing doors in flight - what about canopies in flight? Specifically the DA20? anyone heard of any occurrances?
I can recall of two cases where the DA 20 canopy separated in flight. It was discussed on the old Diamond forum. Both times the aircraft landed safely.
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Colin
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by Colin »

An instructor from Angel City told me that on a night time, rainy departure from Camarillo (KCMA) with an instrument student (nice practice in actual!) the door alarm went off at 400 agl. He looked and saw the rear latch had failed and it was pulling open. He leaned back and tried to hold it closed, but ultimately failed and it departed the plane at 1,200 agl. He said it was noisy but didn't feel unsafe.
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Re: Anybody lose a door?

Post by Karl »

As someone mentioned earlier a number of passenger doors have been lost in flight.

We have found that the red button used to unlock the safety catch can become sticky and hold the safety catch in the open position. Regular lubrication solves this problem and I have got into the habit of testing the catch every time I open a passenger door. My procedure is:-

I unlock the door then try to open it without pressing the red button to test if the safety catch is working. I then press the red button, open the door approx 6 inches, let it fall closed and immediately test if the safety catch is holding the door closed.

If the red button is difficult to press or appears slow to return to the out position then I lubricate it with WD40 or similar.

I did investigate the loss of a door on a DA42 where it was lost during take off, it hit the rear of the engine nacelle on the opposite side of the aircraft (right side) causing some damage and there was evidence that it then hit the top of the right hand side of the stabilizer. IIRC they aborted the take off.
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