Window departed aircraft!

[mudkow60]

Anyone had this happen to them?

I was flying a Piper Warrior with some friends, and I had just closed the (tiny) pilot's side window. There were some hair-line, spider cracks that came from the little orifice around the opening in the window. Suddenly, after closing the window, the cracks must have merged, and about 1/2 of the total left side window departed the aircraft (actually, 1/2 of the chunk fell off onto the Arizona desert, and the other half fell into the lap of a surprised passanger in the back).

We kept flying, as there seemed to be no real danger (the piece that fell out did not contact the aircraft), and it was like flying a T-Top sports car (with the T on the side).

I have pics if anyone is intreasted. Just thought I would share- don't open the pilot's window vent if there are cracks around it!

 

[jbDC9]

I had a kinda similar occurance a few years ago... was ferrying a Cessna 402A from DAL to a paint shop Mena, AR. Just after takeoff, climbing thru a few hundred feet, still over the runway, I heard a "bang" and my ears popped. WTF? Looked back at the air stair door and it was closed... then looked at the emergency escape hatch/window behind the copilot seat; oops, it was gone. The whole thing, window and frame, gone. I stuck my hand out into the breeze just to make sure I wasn't seeing things... was kinda startling.

Anyhoo, it all turned out okay; the window fluttered down and landed on a taxiway, bent one corner when it hit. I landed, a lineman retrieved the window, mechanic straightened out the dent and put it back in place, then wrapped duct tape around it for good measure. It held on okay the rest of the way to Mena...

 

[labbats]

I was always told that you can open the warrior's window in flight, but you can't close it in flight. It will slam so hard that it may break the window.
Guess it was true....

 

[Kaman]

Hello,
I've not had anything fall off an aircraft while I was PIC, however, I did have some interesting incidents while flying in the Navy.
The fist one that comes to mind was while serving as an aircrew instructor on SH-2F in the late 80's. As a consequence of being an aircrewman in the training command we also had to fly along as self-loading luggage on pilot training hops. On this particular day I was crewed with our Aussie exchange pilot and a FRP (Fleet Replacement Pilot). This particular HAC (Helicopter Aircraft Commander) was a notorious "screamer" type of instructor and I'd cringe in the back myself at some of his tongue-lashings of FRPs.
Anyway, we were going round-and-round the pad pattern at NOLF Imperial Beach, California. I was semi-catatonic as we did a series of normal, steep approaches, max-perf. T.O.s., max gross T.O.'s, etc...ad nausem. At some point in the flight we were hovering over the pad when the HAC decided to simulate a lost tail rotor authority/thrust while in a hover. The FRP froze, and amidst shouts of, "WTF are you going to do now mate!" from LT. "Dundee" he kept the right pedal input in and flew the aircraft out following the turn with cyclic inputs to get through translational lift. As a consequence we were WAY BALL out, and I was bracing myself in my seat and hanging on for dear life. We were left wing down, nose right and going through about 4-50 knots or so. And, the right seat pilot's greenhouse blew in and good chunk of it went between the pilots and hit me smack int he face. Fortunately, I had my visor down on my helmet and then proceeded to read the riot act to the idiots up front. We came back around and landed while I got my heart rate out of triple digits. All's well that ends well, and after calming me down w flew back to homeplate, so he could explain to maintence and ops why we were minus the co-pilots "greenhouse".
The scond incident was loosing a cabin door in-flight, also in an H-2. We had just completed our overwater SAR training work and I closing the door prior to straping into my seat for some dreaded pattern work at "IB". As I rotated the handle and pulled the door foward, it departed the aircraft. I flew back against the RADAR R/T with enough force that the pilot's asked, "WTFO?". I was stunned as I watched the cargo door doing a "falling leaf" into the Pacific. I also noticed that it had struck the MAD bird support and after making the ICS call my HAC made a pan, pan, pan call and we landed at Imperial Beach and shutdown. The concern being any debris striking the tail rotor.
Lastly, and far more less dramatic. One of my gunners lost a box of 7.62 ammo over the side while flying a convoy escort over Somalia. Since it was considered a "combat-load" it was also considered pre-expended. Which was very fortunate for us because all ammunition has to be accounted for. Pre-expended combat loads were NEVER brought back to the boat. We would do a "gunex" on the way back to the boat once we were feet-wet. So, it was a "no-harm-no-foul" kind of a deal.
Sorry, for the long-winded post, but thought y'all might find the exploits of a former "rotorhead" humorous.

Regards,

ex-Navy Rotorhead

 

[dmspilot00]

I was always told that you can open the warrior's window in flight, but you can't close it in flight. It will slam so hard that it may break the window.
Guess it was true....

I've taken off in a Warrior a few times forgetting to close the window. I didn't have any problems closing it. However once it's closed it is nearly impossible to open in flight in my experience, unless you pry it with a screwdriver or something. The window did not slam when I closed it, but it was during a climb at only 80 knots.

I also know of a person who was renting the 172 at the FBO I flew at, he was a large person in both directiosn and apparently he hit hard turbulence and his head hit the skylight, which shattered and left the aircraft. Don't know how that happened, maybe he forgot his seatbelt.