Concern About Door Opening Design and Safety

[tomszar]

I have only seen photographs of the SkyCatcher and from those photos I have noted the doors appear to open toward the front of the aircraft. This raises two concerns about the design.

First, it seems to me this presents a risk for a potentially serious in-flight hazard if an unlatched door should spring open during flight. The old hinge placement was conducive to keeping the door in a closed position if a situation, as described, should occur.

Last, and perhaps equally, or more important, is during an Emergency Off-Airport landing we train to spring open the door before touchdown and prop the door open with any available object. This is done to keep the doors from becoming permanently sealed by fuslage crushing and failure on impact. If the doors of the SkyCatcher open froward it will be impossible to utilize this procedure and would place occupants at greater risk of harm by allowing the doors to violently rip away on premature opening and possible entombment if left closed on touchdown and impact.

Has this been noticed and being taken into account with a design change?

[Sean Caranna]

Actually the doors open upward, almost parallel with the wing.