CHI06CA267 · Columbia 350
Columbia 350 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Monroe County Airport (BMG) to Evansville Regional Airport (EVV)
Narrative check · The NTSB narrative appears to contradict this record's injuries. Values are shown as recorded, not corrected; compare with the narrative.
Event
- NTSB case
- CHI06CA267
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Columbia 350
- Aircraft type
- Columbia 350
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N6500V
- Operator
- Mark T. Prall · private individual
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Monroe County Airport (BMG), Bloomington, INTo Evansville Regional Airport (EVV), Evansville, IN
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · climb to cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Airframe, component or system failure
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Door › Open
- Door › Separation
- Pilot in command › Unsafe/hazardous condition warning, not complied with
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The left main entry door departed the airplane when the pilot opened the door during flight. The pilot reported that after departure he noticed a carpet strap was hanging out of the left door and flapping against the airplane. He turned on the autopilot and decided to open the door in order to pull the strap inside. He reported he was unable to hang on to the door and it departed the airplane. The pilot reported he needed stitches because the door was ripped from his hand. The pilot contacted the departure airport stating he was returning to land, but then decided to continue the flight to an airport which was approximately 60 statute miles away where there was a certified Columbia service center. The airplane was landed without incident. Examination of the airplane revealed the door contacted and punctured the right wing. It then contacted and punctured the right horizontal stabilizer. The emergency procedures section in the pilot operating handbook (POH) contains a warning which states, "Do not open the cabin doors in flight. The air loads placed on the doors in flight will damage them and can cause separation from the airplane. A damaged or separated door will alter the flight characteristics of the airplane and possibly damage other control surfaces." The POH also states the following warning in the Doors section of the Description of the Airplane and Systems section: "If the red "Door Open" annunciator light is on or the aural warning is playing, then one or more doors are not properly secured, and the airplane is unsafe to fly."
Probable cause
The pilot did not comply with the pilot operating handbook warning when he intentionally opened the cabin door during flight.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record CHI06CA267
- Event ID
- 20061005X01464
- Case number
- CHI06CA267
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 4d26601ddffca2998605980a738701a7ca4c36e0b177d001d15cd8e0560cc260; retrieved 2026-09-22T04:26:07.137Z.