Cause of fatal plane crash a mystery to pilots

Open cargo door should not have caused fatal crash, aviators say

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By John Nolan, Staff Writer Updated 12:30 AM Saturday, April 3, 2010

MIAMI TWP., Montgomery County — An open door on a small airplane that crashed and killed the two people Thursday, April 1, should have been a manageable problem for the pilot, two other aviators said.

The National Transportation Safety Board, aided by the Federal Aviation Administration, is trying to determine what caused Thursday’s crash that killed pilot Tom Hausfeld, 50, of Springboro, and his daughter Kacie, 21. The NTSB is to file a preliminary report in about 10 days.

Tom Hausfeld had told the Dayton control tower that a cargo door on the Beechcraft Bonanza was open. He was returning to Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport when the plane crashed short of the runway, the FAA said.

He would have had to land to secure the door, because different pressures inside and outside the airplane would have made it impossible to close the door while aloft, said Jamie Thomas, who is president of Maximum Flight Advantages LLC, an aircraft management business at Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport, and is a former flight instructor.

“I’ve flown Bonanzas and I’ve had cargo doors pop open on me and it’s very, very distracting,” Thomas said Friday. “Wind’s blowing around you, and you’re not sure what’s happening.”

But typically, an open door on a small airplane isn’t enough to cause a crash by itself, he said. Thomas, who was acquainted with Hausfeld, noted that weather conditions were favorable at the time of the crash.

Investigators will need to determine whether something else happened that worsened the situation, Thomas said.

Walt Davis, a licensed pilot and retired chairman of Sinclair Community College’s aviation technology department, said that pilot training typically involves situations where the instructor shuts off a plane’s engine while aloft to force student pilots to learn to make quick corrections. By comparison, an open door on the aircraft is relatively minor, Davis said.

“It’s really strange that a cargo door being open would cause him to lose concentration on what he was doing, because that’s certainly not a critical item,” Davis said. “If you were at a high altitude and pressurized, then, yeah.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2242 or jnolan@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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