Originally Posted by
formulaben
There appears to be at least one eyewitness who said the LH FWD baggage door came open on takeoff. Has anyone ever had this happen to them? I'm curious as to the airloads imposed on the aircraft with a baggage door open.
I've never had this happen but I do have some thoughts,
The checklist for the Encore, which I'm assuming is the same (prehaps someone can clarify) in relation to the relevent annunciators says:
ON GROUND
1. CORRECT PRIOR TO FLIGHT
IN FLIGHT
1. AIRSPEED -
REDUCE TO 200 KIAS
2. PASSENGER ADVISORY LIGHTS -
PASS SAFETY
I don't know about the aerodynamic effects of the door being open, but the first problem I can see is the loads on the door itself. If either of the nose bay doors were to seperate, I think they would be quite a hazard to both the engines and empennage. I think this would also be the case with any items in the nose bay, for instance; In our aircraft we have one of those 'dustbuster' type hoovers, It occurs to me that even a relatively small, weak item such as this represents quite a large proportion of the area of the intake to be blocked off even momentarily even if mechanical damage to the engine didn't result.
A worst case scenario is coming to mind and I think a serious accident like this is quite feasable:
- Nose bay door open in flight, Possible seperation of the door
- Engine Fire/Failiure/Severe Damage/Seperation
- Damage to the Empennage
- Soft Items (e.g Clothing or the Covers) tangled up in the tailplane
Not nice.
Now be honest, How many of you have 'squashed' soft items in to the nose bay after the passengers have turned up with Gulfstream baggage? I for one am going to be checking carefully that not only that the door is closed and locked but that nothing in the bay was interfearing with the path of the door or its hinges when it was closed.