Anyone had a door pop open ?

[The Nr Fairy]

Last sector of the day - straightforward, mid-evening good VMC 0.2 trip back to base. Noticed that I hadn't properly latched my door (R44) - bottom latch secure, top latch in the latched position, but had missed the hole it was meant for.

Passed controls to pilot in LHS, took handle, opened door - was VERY surprised at the oomph needed to pull it back to close even the bottom latch, let alone try to close the top one, due to the low pressure outside. I'd never even considered it before.

Slowing down, albeit to 50 knots or so from a cruise of 105, didn't make things any easier.

So - your experiences, please.

FWIW, my thoughts :

1. Check ALL hatches properly secure before lifting - prior to this, I'd checked the position of the handle which now seems to be lacking.

2. If the door is partially latched, but otherwise secure, leave it and sort it out on the ground, especially if single-crewed. I had another rated pilot as it was less stressy.

3. If I'd tried it on my own, almost certainly would have been a Mayday, instead of a flustered few minutes.

4. Would have slowing down to an OGE hover have helped ? Or would the downwash still have created a low enough external pressure to make closing the door properly impossible ?

[Oggin Aviator]

Had a window pop off once. SKW rtb to Culdrose from the northcoast, starboard emergency exit window (held in place by a rubber strip all the way round) decided it didnt like being attached to the airframe anymore. Dropped from 500' in the vicinity of Praze-an-Beeble - never did hear anything else about it. Probably ended up as a mangled souvenir for someone.

1st solo in a 152 on PPL - pilot side door opened whilst rotating - that got my heart pounding even more than it was already !

Oggin

[Nealcon]

Dropped a Mars Bar out of a R44 last month. Didn't see anyhting on the news about someone being killed by a falling Mars Bar... lucky!

[NickLappos]

Those Bournuillis gang up on you at cruise speed, so the interior cabin pressure looks large, and the door can't be closed against it. Try slowing down to about 40 knots and also perhaps kicking a bit of pedal to push the door closed. This always works, I am told by a close friend(never myself having had a missed door latch on pre-flight inspection, of course.)

[greenarrow]

Happens alot with the older 206A/B with the single latch doors when they have been retrofitted with wedge windows. Leave the rear windows open a little tends to stop it.
Also on the 355/350 with the short door when rear sliding doors fitted. Normally caused by the plastic latch being worn or broken.
As nick says catch your map put the coffee down slow down and kick it out of balance to close the door. Avoid leaning over to shut the door a few a/c have been written off with knees knocking the cyclic.:ok:

[pilotwolf]

Had mine pop open during early PPL training, in R22, just after lifting to fly pattern. Made me jump - took hand off collective for about .5 sec before CFI shouted at me! He took control and I latched it properly - no problem but about 50 kts I suppose.

Soon solved the problem/risk of re-occurence - fly with door off!

[B Sousa]

Had a bunch of them, most of the time in A-Stars that had more hours than I have been around.............and I have been around.
Best one I ever had was some fatsos in a Jet Ranger on a tour.
As typical Company wants to stuff as many in as possible for the $$$MONEY$$$. Anyway it was so crowded the guy on the left rear actually pushed the window out.......I guess he was trying to tell me it was crowded.
206 Pilot door on another. Again many hours on an airframe that had rolled down more than one mountain. Frames get tweaked and nothing fits right. Get it in a tight turn and Pop.........door is open.
A friend had a door on a CH-34 fall off in flight over a major city many years ago. Check this..........it landed in one of the other crew chiefs back yard from 1000' what are odds against that.
In this industry its a way of life. If you have tourists just tell them to close the door and carry on like nothings wrong......
Funny thing is with a couple thousand hours in a Huey and many with the doors pinned open or manually operated by the crew chief, never a problem.

Nealcon......Losing a Mars Bar from an R-44 must have really lightened up the load......

[FLI]

Scout AH Mk1, Falkland Islands at 10,000ft. Vicar sole passenger in back, “secured” by Eagle Harness, but with rear doors fitted. Rear door pops open. Frightens the crap out of all of us. Crewman instantly says “I know you want to feel close to God, but could you close the door please” It was no problem as VNE was about 60 kts at 10,000 ft!

First commercial charter flight after leaving military. Bell 206 Longranger. Pax leans forward to look at her house. Grabs the door opening latch to leverage herself forward! Door opens! Frightened pax. Upset chief pilot!

It happens!

[rotorboy]

Oh, youll get lots of them in the future. Had a bunch in the Astar, the teflon wear where the pin comes up. They have a tendancy not to close all the way and like to pop open in flight. just kick her a little out of trim and slow it down. Its real hard to reach backand close sometimes.

Now the 500... they will come open alot... slow to 50-40 FRICTION DOWN COLLECTIVE , kick out of trim and reach over, slam, and push latch down.... ALLWAYS CHECK DOORS YOU DIDNT CLOSE YOURSELF in the the 500 before you depart....


you can close just about anything, friction the controls a little, if you kick the machine out of trim you wont be fighting the airflow, dont freak out, think a little

RB

[Gomer Pylot]

Yeah, doors come open a lot, especially rear doors that pax don't close well. If you can reach it, you can close it by slowing waaayyyyy down. If you can't reach it, then you have to decide whether to land right away or continue to a better landing area. I've had 412 sliding doors come open, at least enough to get the light, and there you either yell at a passenger to close it, or if you're empty one of the pilots goes back and closes it. Having a door open isn't a big problem with most helicopters, because the airstream won't let it go out very far. But if you're an offshore ship, with life vests all over the place, you have to be careful that something doesn't get sucked out and into the tail rotor.

[Ascend Charlie]

Back in the 80s when Sydney had a CBD heliport in Darling Harbour, an elderly private pilot in a B47 picked up to the hover over the pad. The passenger door popped open, so he let go of the controls and leaned over to close it! Nice little mess that one made, and gave critics of the heliport some lethal ammunition.

In the 90s, a start-up charter company staffed with low-time pilots and an old B206 had a task to fly passengers over a powerboat race on the Hawkesbury River. Left Rear-seat pax wants to talk to front-seat pax, so reaches for the door pillar to pull himself forward.

Murphy's Law prevailed: this machine had a stretcher kit fitted, with removable door pillar, and the latch to release it was installed the wrong way - normally the door must be open to operate it. When the door is shut, it prevents the handle from turning the correct way, but in this case the handle turned.

The door pillar and rear door departed the scene, luckily into the water, leaving all aboard somewhat stunned. The bograt pilot was squawking on the radio for his mate to give him some advice. He didn't appreciate that the door pillar was somewhat critical to the integrity of the cabin structure, and he flew home (45 mins) without it.:8

[SASless]

Why just the other day....refuelled...picked up the 100 foot line and bucket...headed back to the fire. Got to about 400 feet and 80 knots....and "BOOOF!"....the bubble door on my left side swings out to about perpendicular...bringing me to an almost erect posture...except for my head trying to worm it's way inside my flight suit collar. Being cool as cucumber...and being no novice to these sorts of things....down on the collective ...and as Nick says...bit of boot (momentary bit of problem solving... trying to figger out which boot ....) to discover the lovely reflective sunshades we use to shield the windscreens have now removed themselves from under the seat and have gone all large, flat, and aerodynamic....and with the now open door acting like a very large and noisy venturi....they head south while I am heading west.

At this point....some single pilot CRM was called for....identified the problems, assigned a priority to each, determined a plan to cope with the various issues, inititated the actions warranted, and began to assess the effectiveness of my actions.

It looked like a Benny Hill prank run at double speed....but wasn't nearly as funny from where I sat. Corralled the two sunshades...re-established cyclic control...folded the shades as if I knew what I was doing....re-established cyclic control....stashed the sunshades....re-established cyclic control....and then attempted to shut the blessed door....at this point I got busy for a bit.

The door being a big ol' bubble door creates quite a bit of southbound lift while traveling westwards....and being a UH-1H without a tractor tailrotor....there was a shortage of pedal by which to cancel the angle of attack the door had assumed....the lift vector of the door was definitely longer than the thrust vector of the tail rotor.

Finally....the door succumbed to my efforts...I regained cyclic control and improved my situational awareness beyond things that were almost within arm's reach....patted myself on the back for the successful completion of the single pilot CRM exercise....just in time to look a huge square parachute sized kite squarely in the eye at not much distance. (I was dipping out of the ocean while fighting this fire mind you....) Being on top of things...a bit of cyclic...an arm full of collective...and a bit of bank...nay problem Jimmy.....until I remembered the longline and bucket trailing down, back, and now out!

Just another boring day at the office.:{

[Vfrpilotpb]

Flying out from EGNH, wearing a nice new HiViz waistcoat, due to ground rules, what I didnt know was the jacket was trapped in the door and when I gave the door a cursory push it didnt move, so off into the wild blue yonder did I go, only to then feel a little restricted in my movement, a good tug and heypresto I was was able to move more freely, but bugger me the door was at 90Degs to the cabin, tried every which way to close and secure with the wrong hand, so flew slightly out of balance and landed in a field about three miles away, closed door, thought of myself as being a jerk and took off again :ok:
Vfr

[Rotorbee]

Appart from CFI's which open the door on purpose without warning, I did not have an event like this, but there was one in switzerland which was well documented by all the family members of the passagers. Nice video.
There was a "nice" 206 (some pink stripes and stuff) that just lifted in a hover and the pilot door pops open. Without hesitation the pilot takes his RIGHT hand and tries to close the door. The helicopter not used to fly by his own settled somehow hard on the heels of the skids, which collapsed. Fortunately nobody got hurt, except the pride of the pilot.

I do not know where this video is, but if I was the pilot, I would hate the fact that it could pop up in forums like this for years.



:D

[Devil 49]

As posted above, it happens, and it will happen again. Also, as posted, slow down and push the open door side into the wind with a little opposite pedal- if it's convenient to "rassle" with the door in flight. Heavy emphasis on the convenience factor. If inconvenient- land and secure the hatch. If that's not possible immediately, slow down and continue to a "land as soon as soon as possible" point, land, and secure the hatch.

It's exciting when the hatch pops open of it's own accord- it has, does and it will happen. The immediate danger is unsecured objects, especially the light and durable stuff that exits and could be a rotor hazard.
Next, anything with ballistic potential that could endanger those below. If you secure loose objects, as we all do, it's not an issue (clearing throat)- the "falling object/part of the airframe lost in flight" paperwork IS a serious issue.

Getting excited at the change in noise level, and reacting in that mode, is your next most immediate hazard. If the door hasn't parted company with the helo at cruise speed, it *probably* won't and will continue as part of the airframe. That's not necessarily a hazard- usually the hatch opens a few inches and oscillates a bit. I don't know what kind of forces are acting on the unsecured door but my experience is they already have at this point. Losing control of the aircraft is a definite hazard, avoid it. If it's your door and you can secure it quickly and cleanly without intricate maneuvers, do so. Otherwise land, void, secure the hatch, and continue. Landing is easy, we've all done it many times.

If there's a "critter" sitting by the door, see if it's coherent with all the adrenaline coursing thru it's body. If so, consider -carefully- having the critter- er, uh- the "passenger" close the door. Danger- the critter's eyes will big as saucers and each shall have the strength of ten ordinary mortals, yea, verily! You want to cool them down, or you don't want them involved with a fragile and expensive part of the aircraft. I have seen perfectly sound doors exposed to excited rig hands done serious damage. If everybody isn't breathing normally- once the door closing starts, it's a self-exciting exercise and difficult to control, and pretty soon butts are unbelted and scrambling around, and the potential for spontaneous sky diving enters the picture. Tis is also a serious paperwork issue, and grounds for termination.

To recap, it's a common occurence. Slow down, secure the hatch, or land and secure it. Don't, repeat don't make it an emergency.

P.S. I wouldn't screw with a partially secured door in flight. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Fly the aircraft.

[rotorusa]

I've had doors pop open on me a couple of times in a 206 (mostly passenger doors) but I had a new experience the other day when, while flying along in cruise, the sliding portion of my window decided it didn't want to be a part of the helicopter any longer and flew off by itself. Good thing the tail rotor is on the other side.

[SkyMaster19]

Like experience in the GOM: LAST flight with the operator in the L1 pig of the fleet. Boudreaux in the back on the left side leaned to hard, popped the window seal and whoosh....one of the Mae West's got sucked out passing the T/R. Just another notch in a great day.......

[SASless]

Doing my S-58T conversion in Scotland....tower calls up...asks what was it that just fell off the helicopter. Much palavver in the cockpit but both sides pleaded ignorance of the issue. A former Guards Officer who was also doing the conversion training...down below in the cabin was finally roused to respond he also had no knowledge of any problem. Upon hovering around a bit....we discovered a large red and white cabin door lying in the grass with enough lettering on it to confirm it at one time had belonged to Alan Bristow.

Upon shutting down to retrieve Mr. Bristow's stray property....circumstantial evidence was located to suggest Major Tony Well Done...while looking for a place to eject his breakfeast (....probably several gallons of last nights malt beverage)...must have pulled the Jettison handle in lieu of the more standard method of opening the cabin door.

Always wondered how he kept from following the door on its way down!

The cowboy boot in the cornflakes story involving this fine example of a Guard's Officer at breakfast at the Monymusk Inn is best told over several pints of "Heavy"!:ok:

[rotorboy]

NR Fairy, you jinxed me!

Today flying one of our 500's my door popped open, couldnt get it shut , was the top forward latch. Of course the weather was just beauitful, and there was no wind either!;) coulnd have happened on a nicer day..... just my luck

ended up landing, slamming her and back to proper business of punching holes in the fog, rain and a blowing westerly

RB

[cleartail]

I've just passed my 30th hour of instruction in S300Cs and I've not yet actually flown with the doors on. Due to the temps out at Concord, CA it's always too glorious (weather wise) to put-them-there-doors back on.

Oh how I long for the cooler temps of the autumn (yes, I'm a brit) to make my turn to base without gettin' blown across the cabin.

Perhaps the doors were sold off a long time ago,.. best get my woolies out.

[John Eacott]

Early SK's had a habit of dropping the cabin windows, usually over some part of Kernow or the oggin, where no one could be bothered. JR doors are an habitual offender, all previous closing solutions are effective, but a landing in a paddock is the best ;)

Agusta A109 rear right door departing the airframe at 160+ knots was attention getting: the photographer was unbuckled from the right seat and in to the left seat, before we worked out what was happening :hmm: We discovered that a previous owner ( :rolleyes: ) had modified the emergency jettison handle such that there were 4 alternative sets of holes in the spigot for the handle to line up on. And yes, the pins were checked pre flight :ok:

BK slidings doors are fairly agricultural in construction, and often move off the microswitch giving an erroneous door warning light, but can usually be nudged home easily. The pilot's door top catch can sometimes miss fully connecting, but the airflow noise as speed increases soon gives the game away, and the door is robust enough to close easily in flight: similar problems sometimes happened in the 212/412, especially the high time airframes.

[Ascend Charlie]

The mention of 212s and bubble windows brought back a suppressed memory:

Tasked to carry some VIPs late at night in mid-winter over a mountain range. I knew it was gonna be bloody freezing with the big opening in the bottom of the bubble, and I didn't want the blast of 7000' cold air coming in the hole. I cut a section of 6" thick rubber foam to jam in the hole to prevent the blast coming in.

After takeoff, at about 30kt, there was a "fwup" noise and the foam was gone! The pressure differential worked opposite to what i expected, and the cabin pressure pushed the foam out instead of the outside pressure shoving it in.

It was subsequently a very cold flight, but at least nobody complained about being bopped on the head by a foam blank.:{

[delta3]

I had a few of those in the early days, especially when heli was not level before take off and pax failed to get all 3 locks in.

With experienced people on board I agree with the slowing down, and yawing part, but then again with experienced people this should not happen to begin with.

With unexperience pax I would not do that, 2 out of 3 locks is more than enough.

I always formally check wether all door are fully locked (3 pins) and in preflight if the hindge securities are OK.
When people take out doors for photos etc, they might not put the pins on the door, so doing the arcrobatic moves with the doors may lead to dropping/loosing the door, this may be more serious than loosing a Mars bar.

[CRAN]

I had a door come open twice in the same flight on an R22 based in LA. I was on my way back to long beach from french valley flying solo when the passenger door came open...twice! The door was securely closed and over a period about two minutes the catch managed to creep up and open! I reached over, locked and latched it and carried on back to Long Beach. I was at about 80kts at the time but had no difficulty shutting the door. I reported it as a fault when I got back to base but left LA before the aircraft returned.

I've flown lots of R22's and R44's both old and new and have never had it happen since.

CRAN

[SASless]

Cleartail....

A bit of pressure on one of the footrests might cure that blast of air turning base leg....and why just base leg?

[GLSNightPilot]

Doors coming open in the sim can be exciting, too. Way, way back when, I was in the US Army in Germany, and got sent to the UH1 non-visual sim in Hanau for a midnight period. The unit IP decided to have fun with us, and had me working. He had put in all the malfunctions he could, took those out without telling me, and put in another set. There I was, with no gyros at all, in emergency governor, with turbulence level 9 set, on a GCA. Suddenly we crashed. I thought I had caused the crash at first, but the track still showed me on course and on glidepath. The left-seat pilot had been holding the door latch, which was trying to turn with all the turbulence, but he let go to tune a radio and the door, and therefore the electrical interlock, came open and we fell off motion. We quit there, and my flightsuit was pretty much soaked in sweat.

[Billywizz]

had a student once, opened the door at 500feet cos he wasn't feeling too good during a trial lesson!

[HeliMark]

Use to fly a 500 that had a rear door that loved to pop open. No matter what the mechanics tried, it was only a matter of time before it started popping open again. About the only problem was in the right situation (working low over trees) when the door would slam shut. Sounded like a compressor stall at the wrong time.:ugh:

[rotorboater]

When you fly close to Vne in an enstrom the doors pop open! Don't know how they managed to design that!:D

[belly tank]

A friend of mine doing his training in an R22 was doing a nav with his instructor of course they were over wooded country at the time and the instructors door actually flew completely OFF!! GOOOOOONE!

The door broke from the bottom hinge and flew upwards ripping off the corner of the top hinge leaving the hinge and split pin still in place on the top. This is where it gets interesting!

Door flies off and upwards you can guess what happened next, straight through the MR and diced into confetti.

They proceeded to decend and land ASAP slight vibration throught the airframe was what my friend had told me but i can still see the fear in his eyes when he tells me the story again.

Landed , shutdown inspected the MR to find a nice little Indentation on the leading edge. Subsequently the aircraft was grounded untill the blades were replaced!!!

[Heli-Ice]

Happened to me a few times in the H300C while on photography flights.

I always fly with one door off during photography flights, two doors off isn't a good idea up here in the cold.

Once with the right door removed and slipping to the right at 35-40kts with a lot of boot on the left pedal and the photographer hanging out the right side, a remarkably heavy wind entered the cabin and blew the left door open. Things started flying around inside the helicopter and to my amazement I lost visual for a second and felt pain in my eyes. Later I realized that the sand from the carpets got sucked out of the carpets and blown into my eyes. It was kind of scary but I kept my cool and looked like the trained professional that I am and was expecting this to happen, until the sand cleared from my eyes. (Had the dark visors on)

It's amazing how much sand the carpets can absorb and this sure taught me to tell the engineer to thorughly clean the carpets at regular intervals!

On another flight, I was flying an aerial ad filming and during one of the approaches to the target the darn left door blew open. Some of the video tapes that the photographer had put on the floor, with some great shots on of course, :cool: started sliding over the floor of the helicopter and almost managed to sneak out the door. But with my rattlesnake reactions I managed to grab them and bring'em to safety. I have to say that before I reached for the tapes, I had assured myself that it would be better to do that in stead of taking the risk of having them flying out of the helicopter and falling onto the heads of innocent people on the ground that were watching a beautifully flown helicopter up there. :8

When things like these happen you think, damn it's good to have a strong ticker.

[SASless]

Had a pair of Clamshell doors on a Chinook come open one afternoon over a very unfriendly neighborhood...I can assure you the Boeing-Vertol version of speed brakes are not as stout as the Boeing style. While in cruise at 120 knots....there was a wee bang sound....followed by some really weird air flow in the cabin and cockpit. The clamshell doors being on the leading edge of the aft pylon....and opening rearwards from the front....well I guess they must have swung pretty hard there for a moment...like a New York Instant really....and just like the old country western song...."and psssst....you were gone!" As the air pressure increased inside the aft pylon....the two aft work platform doors decided to open as well...and they did so with one heck of a bang! It was about then we sensed something was amiss.....that and seeing a crewie with eyes the size of dinner plates speaking in gibberish while pointing a very shaky finger towards the rear of the aircraft. The work platform doors were of better quality than the pylon doors.....we at least came home with them.