Video Shows Open Door in Deer Valley Cirrus Crash
I wrote here that the door on N146CK, the Cirrus SR22 that crashed August 4 at Deer Valley, opened in-flight. Yesterday, Fox News in Phoenix aired video from a security camera that captured the impact. Here are frame grabs from the video showing the open door.
Usually, when a door pops open in flight, aerodynamic forces keep the door from opening more than an couple of inches, as depicted here. The door on N146CK was open much more than just a couple of inches. Of course, the aerodynamic forces operating on this aircraft were far from normal.
Full video here. (Note: the video is disturbing.)
Just too bad. The pilot seemed to have no difficulty flying the airplane with an open door--according to the NTSB report, he reported an open door right after takeoff, and subsequently flew all the way around the pattern before the approach turn stall.
A pilot-rated witness said the aircraft entered a left spin on the base-to-final turn, according to the NTSB report.
From a purely legal perspective, makes for a wonderful proximate causation hypothetical. Aircraft doors ought not open in flight, but then nor should a pilot crash his airplane just because a door popped open.
I see this case settling, though I don't think there ought to be any liability based upon the door opening. Any jury seeing all the fuel splash out and explode is going to start throwing money at the plaintiff. It would be interesting to see the results of a few mock jury sessions with this video and the facts of the case.
Regards,
CS
Those are the types of things that parties think about when it comes time to discuss settlement. But it's unlikely that a jury will ever see more than the two frames of the video pictured above. Since it doesn't appear that the fuel splash and explosion are relevant to the cause of the crash, the judge won't allow it into evidence.
An occupant shouldn't be burned in an otherwise survivable crash. If he is, then the aircraft's design is defective. Thus, a video like this *might* be relevant to that question. But this crash doesn't appear to have been "otherwise survivable." The impact forces look too high. So it's unlikely the video would be admitted into evidence for that purpose, either.
On the admissibility of evidence question, I think it could go either way, and the judge would be upheld on appeal regardless of his decision, given that he'd be reviewed for abuse of discretion (though whether the threshold question of "otherwise survivable" is for the judge to determine or an question of fact for the jury is something I'd have to research a bit).
I still think the far more interesting issue is the one of proximate cause, but I've been doing appellate work for several years, not trial stuff, so the legal questions like that tend to spark my interest a bit more.
Regards,
CS
Seems the door is open quite a bit more than it "normally" should be. You have a picture of a door open in flight on a Cirrus in another post. The other picture shows it to be about 1-2 inches open. Based on the video footage from the Deer Valley crash seems the door can open quite a bit from a stalled condition or slower flight condition. Seems the pilot wasn't distracted by the door popping initially and was able to tell tower that he wanted to return for landing. Unfortunately we'll never know and it is solely based on conjecture that a left turn into the popped door, being slow already in the pattern the door could of swung open to the air shock length. That could of certainly been distracting enough to allow someone to get into an approach turn stall. Would be interesting to find out how a popped door "acts" in various stalled aircraft conditions.
I've heard conflicting reports about what an open Cirrus door will do when the aircraft stalls. But, as your analysis suggests, what's more important is what it does when the aircraft is turning in the pattern while still above stall speed.
Mike