In January of last year, the nose baggage door of a Cessna CE-525 CitationJet opened during takeoff from Van Nuys Airport. Moments later, the jet crashed into an empty lot in a residential neighborhood just north of the airport, killing both pilots.
As you might expect at a busy airport, many people who knew something about airplanes watched the takeoff. Witnesses at midfield reported that the baggage door was closed as the airplane passed them; others near the departure end of the runway said that it was open and standing upright. A pilot holding short of the runway at an intermediate location, past midfield, reported that the Citation passed in front of him at about 100 feet, slow, and that the nose came down in what he interpreted as “an attempt to gain airspeed and control.” He was on the right side of the Citation, and said nothing about the baggage door.
