Missing plane door found on motel roof

A door from a plane fell from the sky and landed on the roof of a motel in Monterey, California. Monterey Regional Airport Manager Thomas Greer said the door fell from a private plane owned by Beech King Airlines, and it took off from the Monterey Airport at around 3pm on Thursday.



Greer said the plane was about 1000 ft in the air when the pilot heard a noise and noticed that the door was not closed, so he turned around and landed. "When he got back on the ground he discovered the door missing," he said. Airport officials said they searched all around the airport for the door, including the fairgrounds, golf course and even along the coast, but they could not find it. Greer also said the airport did not receive any reports about a plane door falling from the sky.



One place that the airport officials did not check was the roof of the El Castell Motel. The door apparently landed on the roof of the motel, which is near the airport, but nobody noticed until the next day. "A contractor guy stopping by the office says hey, there's a plane door on the roof," said A. J. Panchal, who was working at the motel when the door made a hard landing.


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The fire department came by and took the door. An investigation is underway as to how the door fell off the Beechcraft King Air plane. The National Transportation Safety Board is sending a mechanic to look at the plane, said Greer. "We never heard it. Because if the door fell from the plane, it would be a big noise. Someone would have noticed," said Panchal. Miraculously, nobody was injured by the falling door and all the passengers on board the plane were okay. There were two people on the jet, the pilot and a passenger.