NYC07LA237 · Ortiz G/Saint J RV-10
Ortiz G/Saint J RV-10 · Accident: airframe, component or system failure en route
From Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (RYY) to Dothan Regional Airport (DHN)
Event
- NTSB case
- NYC07LA237
- 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
Ortiz G/Saint J RV-10
- Aircraft type
- Ortiz G/saint RV-10
- 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
- N416EC
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Cobb County International Airport-McCollum Field (RYY), Atlanta, GATo Dothan Regional Airport (DHN), Dothan, AL
- 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 · 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
No findings designated as a cause are recorded in the NTSB data yet.
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The private pilot of an amateur-built RV-10 performed his preflight inspection, and confirmed that the doors were in the locked position by observing the lock indicator lights on the instrument panel, as well as the lock annunciators on the airplane’s electronic flight information system. During cruise flight, at an altitude of 4,500 feet mean sea level, and an estimated cruise speed of 145 knots, he noticed the right door was vibrating. He reached over to grip the door handle and the door began to open upwards. Shortly thereafter the door opened completely, separated from the airframe, and struck the right horizontal stabilizer. The pilot declared an emergency and returned to the departure airport. A search for the separated door was unsuccessful, and postaccident examination of the airplane was inconclusive. As part of the investigation, five RV-10 airplanes fitted with the same door locking mechanism were surveyed. Varying degrees of door lock pin extension lengths were observed between airplanes.
Probable cause
Separation of the passenger cabin door during cruise flight for undetermined reasons.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record NYC07LA237
- Event ID
- 20071024X01649
- Case number
- NYC07LA237
- 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. 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: 32db24c4bf8345fd5c6132242dd5006d467be6d6c81c0c8f1ce8d0918abaae8f; retrieved 2026-09-22T03:24:53.432Z.