WPR09IA187 · Liberty Aerospace Incorporated LIBERTY XL-2
Armed Forces Flying Club Liberty Aerospace Incorporated LIBERTY XL-2 · Incident: part(s) separation from aircraft en route
From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF) to Oxnard Airport (OXR)
Event
- NTSB case
- WPR09IA187
- 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
- Incident
- 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
Liberty Aerospace Incorporated LIBERTY XL-2
- Aircraft type
- Liberty Aerospace LIBERTY XL-2
- 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
- N519XL
- Operator
- Armed Forces Flying Club
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport (MYF), San Diego, CATo Oxnard Airport (OXR), Oxnard, CA
- 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
- Defining eventThe 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
- Part(s) separation from aircraft
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Minor
Cause areas
- Aircraft › Aircraft structures
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
Prior to takeoff, the pilot, who was receiving instrument flight instruction, closed the left side canopy door. The door is composed of a composite material that can be torsionally deformed during the closing and locking process if both the forward and rear door pins are not fully engaged in their respective fuselage frame receptacles. During the door closing operation, the door's aft locking pin was not completely engaged into its receptacle in the door frame. The airplane's flight manual's "Before Takeoff" checklist contains the line item that the doors are to be "CLOSED AND SECURE." The pilot and flight instructor departed for the flight and initially the left side door remained closed; however, the door popped open when the airplane entered an area of moderate turbulence. Thereafter, the left side door's structure ripped apart with the majority of the door separating from the airplane. A portion of the door impacted and dented the left stabilator, and a portion of the door became lodged in the airplane's empennage. The flight instructor took control of the airplane and, unable to maintain altitude, descended and landed at a nearby airport without further incident. After this event, the airplane's manufacturer enhanced the checklist to include the following statement: "Canopy Doors (Both FWD pins and both AFT pins) ENGAGED AND SECURE. [[NOTE]] Verify doors are closed by pushing on aft section of both doors." Also, the manufacturer issued Service Document number SB-09-003, indicating the availability of a tapered aft actuator door pin that, when installed, will facilitate the door's locking pins' engagement into the door frame receptacle.
Probable cause
The cruise flight separation of the canopy door. Contributing to the incident was the pilot's failure to ensure that the left side door was securely closed prior to takeoff.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record WPR09IA187
- Event ID
- 20090409X61234
- Case number
- WPR09IA187
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
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: 964319f201ef3f683fc4c9a34684e319ed87fe1f81d22971375ce2608527399b; retrieved 2026-09-15T10:55:11.766Z.