A private plane is forced to make an emergency landing right after take off when its main door falls off. Just before 4 o’clock this afternoon Grand Junction Central Dispatch received a call that a door had fallen off an aircraft and the plane was returning to Grand Junction Regional Airport to make an emergency landing.
We do know the plane landed safely and everyone on board was okay. A spokesperson with Grand Junction Regional Airport says the plane was being towed to Westar Aviation. Teresa Garner, a manager with Westar says they are not commenting on the incident saying, no one was ever in danger. It’s still not known at what point the door came loose from the aircraft or where the door landed.
…ummmmm - EXCEPT for the people on the ground below the plane when the door fell off!
I LOVE this! Everytime an incident happens with the potential for loss of life, spokespeople are always saying “nobody was ever in any danger”. It just doesn’t sound very good for public relations people to say, “Whew! We really dodged a bullet on this and we’re very fortunate nobody was hurt (or killed) in this incident.”
You wouldn’t think that there would be forces on the airframe during takeoff that could separate a door from the fuselage. I could see how the door being out in the airflow might damage the door and hinge mechanism, but actually remove it? Wow, just wow.
Mike Fergus of FAA stated, “Challenger lost its door as the plane was on climb out, just leaving the runway around 3:30 p.m. The door tumbled into a desert area west of the airport property.”
Do you have a lot of time in Challengers? I don’t but I’m more of a Gulfstream type myself.
There are many loyal Challenger (and Global Express) operators in Seattle, a place where IFR and minimums are the norm. Some of the corporate operators around here who have owned multiple copies over the last 20+ years and who’s names are synonymous with ‘crap’ include Bill Gates, Paul Allen, The McCaws, Nordstrom, Costco and Starbucks. OK, I’ll give you the last one!
I’ve gotta go with Leardvr on this one. There is nothing wrong with the Challenger series itself. The accidents you hear about with Challengers tend to be stupid pilots who exceed limitations or do something AMAZINGLY stupid, like fail to deice the aircraft. The CL-600 series is a favorite of operators around the world for many reasons, but like any airplane, she’ll only put up with so much abuse.
BTW, I did a google search and came up with this photo. Looks like this bird has had some interesting maintenance issues. flickr.com/photos/avsfan/447938563/
Yet another plane brought to the coast to fix. To answer the question would forces be strong enough to rip a door off on climbout. Obviously so! I have worked on Challengers, Globals, CRJ’s and soo many different types of aircraft. The Challengers have the same door design as the CRJ. i has one single piano hinge attaching the door to the fuselage when its opened. The crew probably neglected to fully close the pax door prior to takeoff. When the aircraft pressurizes after takeoff it must have blown open and at that speed a piano hinge isnt going to do a darn thing to support a door. Have you ever held your hand out the window at 75-80 mph and held it palm foreward. Thats a lot of force pushing on your hand. think about holding a piece of plywood out 6ft tall and say 2feet wide so we can compare it to a challenger door. then triple the speed.
The door still was recognizable as a door too, just very dented from what i heard. the door blew off and went under the plane and damaged the belly pannels a bit.
Oh and personally not a fan of Bombardier products. I would much rather work on a gulfstream, hawker, falcon, emb any day.