Originally Posted by
Avionker
I could be wrong but I seem to recall that all the incidents of cargo doors opening in flight have occurred as a result of the latches not been fully engaged.
This was due to the doors not been correctly rigged. A failure of maintenance procedures, as opposed to design or equipment failure. A little pedantic perhaps but quite an important distinction, in my opinion at least.
The most notorious case was the initial DC-10 cargo door, which led to multiple blowout failures culminating in the loss of the THY aircraft at Paris with all on board.
Although the ground crew had mishandled the operating mechanism, it was recognised this was all too easy to do with the rigging employed. In fact the rigging design was subsequently used in engineering training courses as an example of "would any idiot design one like this, then", done anonymously, and then revealed for what it was at the end of the exercise.