Emergency Landing | Baggage Door Blow Off Mid Flight | Model K

[MrRodgers]

On 5/30/2020 at 6:28 PM, Rwsavory said:

Hat’s off also to your co-pilot.  Well done! 

Amazing... Great job bringing her in safely and for navigating with airfields along your route.  A big round of applause for your passenger.  She was amazing and calm throughout.  My favorite part was her situational awareness of all of the outhouse toilets around you and her relief in not hitting any.  What a great attitude.  Glad you are safe.

[MoonFlyer68]

35 minutes ago, carusoam said:

AV8R,

Check the links Paul just dropped above you...

You should be able to find a parts kit that updates what you have...

A small dollar amount... not a whole new door measured in AMUs amount...

Best regards,

-a-

I am pleasantly surprised to find out how inexpensive a new style door is on eBay.  Given I will need to paint my plane in the near future anyway,  it would actually be a good idea I think as it allows the door to be opened from the inside during an emergency.  Safety is something I can sell the wife on. LOL

[JT]

Fantastic job RedSkyFlyer....

 

For the rest of us- let's all be sure that the cotter pin is there, especially right after an ARC (translation- annual inspection).

This is the first I ever knew of it's existence or the damage it's non-existence could cause. 

[RedSkyFlyer]

Going to visited the AC today. I’ll keep you all in the loop once I have more info/photos.

If anyone has a spare hatch door for a model K I maybe in the market....... think mine is a little unsalvageable.

Thank you for all the kind comments, my wife and I really appreciate it, lots to take in. The first question she asked when we got in the cab home was ‘how long do you think it will take until we’re flying her again?’ 

Edited June 8, 2020 by RedSkyFlyer

[Paul B]

10 minutes ago, RedSkyFlyer said:

‘how long do you think it will take until we’re flying her again?’ 

great news and great job Steve.  best regards. Paul B

[steingar]

I had mine come  open in flight a few years back.  The only indications were a slight breeze and I lost 5 knots.  By the time I realized it I was far enough into my flight that a diversion made no sense, so I landed with my baggage door open in front of friends and my CFI.  No damage except some missing paint on the latch.  CFI told me he did the exact same thing, except in his case the door departed the airframe and cost him lots of money.

[Jerry Pressley]

got a nice door off late 201   same as 231 if anyone needs

[EricJ]

23 hours ago, MilitaryAV8R said:

I am pleasantly surprised to find out how inexpensive a new style door is on eBay.  Given I will need to paint my plane in the near future anyway,  it would actually be a good idea I think as it allows the door to be opened from the inside during an emergency.  Safety is something I can sell the wife on. LOL

A replacement door may not fit as well, since they're kind-of sized for the airplane at the factory.

There is a very old article around on teh intarwebs (and I think maybe even here) on a simple way to add an interior release for the older hatches.   I have a very early J model that does not have the interior latch and is not eligible for the retrofit.   On my airplane the method in the article, while simple and effective, would have prevented me from ever using the lock again, so I came up with a very similar simple alteration and installed that.   On the older doors I don't know of any simple modification that will allow the door to be opened from inside while it's locked, but I fly with mine unlocked, anyway (horror!).

This is what I did:

 

Edited June 2, 2020 by EricJ

[FloridaMan]

I went and inspected mine just now. 

[kortopates]

On 6/1/2020 at 4:00 AM, RedSkyFlyer said:

Going to visited the AC today with my mechanic. I’ll keep you all in the loop once I have more info/photos.

If anyone has a spare hatch door for a model K I maybe in the market....... think mine is a little unsalvageable.
...

Ps thank you for all the kind comments, my wife and I really appreciate it, lots to take in. The first question she asked when we got in the cab home was ‘how long do you think it will take until we’re flying her again?’ 

Back when the factory was fully operational Mooney was quoting just under $4K US for a baggage door with a 3 week lead time. I don't know about availability of horizontal stab or cost; salvage or new, but suspect that might be the harder item to source. The door does take a lot of work to install because they are custom fitted to each Mooney. A knew one will come with an extra 1" of aluminium to trim to precisely fit like your old one. The problem with a salvage door is that its a real gamble on how it will fit and only if your lucky you'll have to trim versus have visible gaps.

Locking the door is the only sure way to ensure this doesn't happen, the internal hitch pin on the the internal latch is not going to fall out, nor get pulled out as long as the plastic covers remains attached. A new door will be made up IAW the earlier service bulletins that did correct for some early issues, but if you do go with a salvage door, be sure to comply with the earlier SB if the salvage door has't yet. Hopefully your door fuselage damage will be limited to just ripping of the aluminum piano hinge.

Edited June 8, 2020 by kortopates

[Blue on Top]

@RedSkyFlyer  Nice job assessing the situation, making a plan and executing the plan.  Changing the plan mid-execution is normally what causes the fatalities.

I am not sure exactly when the regulations changed (or when Mooney elected to follow them), but it is now a regulation that there must be two ways out of the airplane with the airplane in any position … including up-side-down.  When the new baggage door is installed, it would be a good idea to make the baggage openable from the inside, too, with a safety device holing it locked normally.

Bottom Line:  Nice job to you and your wife.  Not only being able to walk away but also to use the airplane again (with minor work).  Thanks for sharing.

[Andy95W]

I did just like @EricJ, I modified my baggage door to have an emergency pull handle.  Like his, if I lock my baggage door the emergency pull will not work.  

So I do what I've been doing for 20 years of Mooney ownership: if the door is closed, it is latched.  If the door is unlatched, it is completely open.  It is now so much of a habit that even if I've taken the airplane apart for an annual, I still latch it if it's closed.

 

 

 

×

[cliffy]

An idea not proffered yet would be to design a wind activated vane like the DB Cooper vane that kept the rear stairs closed in flight on 727s. Shouldn't be too difficult a task (as a minor alteration even)

 

[Hank]

Just now, cliffy said:

An idea not proffered yet would be to design a wind activated vane like the DB Cooper vane that kept the rear stairs closed in flight on 727s. Shouldn't be too difficult a task (as a minor alteration even)

Ha ha! He said "DB Cooper"!!

My question is, is this necessary? Maybe just put a deflector shield above the cabinet door handle that is attached to our baggage door?

[Ibra]

8 minutes ago, cliffy said:

An idea not proffered yet would be to design a wind activated vane like the DB Cooper vane that kept the rear stairs closed in flight on 727s

I am assuming designing a door in non-pressurised aircraft that opens against airflow will make it naturally self-closed during the flight without any extra mechanism or complexity?

Someone did jettison his glider canopy to bailout on parachute after mid-air collision, he told me it did took him few seconds to realise it was not going off by itself unless he push it against the air airflow, that is for the front one that opens forward, the rear one that opens backward did blow off by itself and went to the tail 

Edited June 1, 2020 by Ibra

[Andy95W]

22 minutes ago, cliffy said:

An idea not proffered yet would be to design a wind activated vane like the DB Cooper vane that kept the rear stairs closed in flight on 727s. Shouldn't be too difficult a task (as a minor alteration even)

 

 

Interestingly, I made just such a thing for the nose baggage door of my Aztec.  I'll see if I can dig up a picture of it.  (On an Aztec, if the nose baggage door opens in flight, there's a good chance it'll take down the airplane.)

PS- kudos for using the word "proffered" in a sentence.  That's pretty high-fallutin' for MooneySpace. 

[cliffy]

I know of a CJ Citation that crashed after takeoff with the fwd bag door open BUT the crew got distracted and got too slow on the turn to final (probably trying to save the door from blowing off) and they did a half roll to inverted into a a smoking hole. 

[Ibra]

15 minutes ago, Andy95W said:

PS- kudos for using the word "proffered" in a sentence.  That's pretty high-fallutin' for MooneySpace. 

Everyday is a school day here in MS (not just technical stuff )

[cliffy]

Just tryin' to raise the level of conversation and education  :-) :-)

[RedSkyFlyer]

[EricJ]

Any pics of the hinge and door jam/pin keepers on the airplane?    Was that hole in the stab from one of the pins?   That'd suggest at least one pin was out when it separated.

[EricJ]

2 hours ago, Andy95W said:

I did just like @EricJ, I modified my baggage door to have an emergency pull handle.  Like his, if I lock my baggage door the emergency pull will not work.  

So I do what I've been doing for 20 years of Mooney ownership: if the door is closed, it is latched.  If the door is unlatched, it is completely open.  It is now so much of a habit that even if I've taken the airplane apart for an annual, I still latch it if it's closed.

That's what I do as well.   I also check it on my last walk-around before getting in the airplane, and then the *first* item on my pre-start checklist is to verify the hatch is closed.   If mine isn't latched you can see daylight around it, so I check it visually from inside again.    I made it the first item on the checklist because if it's not latched I don't want to be way down the checklist and then have to unstrap and get out and fix it... 

2 hours ago, Andy95W said:

 

That was part of my inspiration, so thanks! 

[RedSkyFlyer]

Went to see AC, unfortunately the damage is a little more extensive than I first imagined (without taking off the tail) you can see that the airframe has twisted to the right all the way up the tail and the skin is deformed down the side of the fuselage half way up towards the baggage door on the right. Really hard to see in the photos.

The impact from the door has also pushed the horizontal stabiliser back a good 10cm compared to the left side. You can see the 1cm gap thats been created at the joint where it connects to the empennage.

Finally, and most worryingly the debris & stuffing from the hatch door was blocking the elevator fork from moving freely hence why it didn’t just fly away, as a consequence the flight controls are all strained & warped from the opposing force of using the trim to control the AC on the glide down, the metal linkage has also been bent slightly showing the strain that was on the AC.

The additional photos are the skid marks through the field. Turns out Membury used to be an old RAF base used during the battle of Briton, I have draw out our flight path on the old map in green and red. My wife compared the incident to being hit by 88mm flak cannon. 

A toast to ‘The Few’. 

Edited June 8, 2020 by RedSkyFlyer

[0TreeLemur]

I think it is impressive that the gear didn't collapse.    Here's an example of what can happen on a rough field: 

See about 20 min. 40 seconds into the video.

[Ibra]

14 minutes ago, RedSkyFlyer said:

Finally, and most worryingly the debris & stuffing from the hatch door was blocking the elevator fork from moving freely hence why it didn’t just fly away

I think you did really well lading ASAP and I am impressed how the aircraft stayed rock solid, the size of the unseen damage could be mind boggling, putting aside effectivness of elvator control or them getting jammed, I think having a door openning in cruise way above Vfe will lead to serious structural failures on the airframe, these may go beyond what we can see from the outside, lot of things inside got twisted, this is not like a door that opens on takeoff or landing...