Listening to BBC this morning and heard that 19 pax and crew died after a Tropical Air LET-410 crashed shortly after take-off in Haiti. The early prognosis was that a door opened shortly after take-off. I would be interested to know how this could bring down a modern twin...perhaps it detached and hit the stabiliser as happened with an HS.748 in the 70's.

It did remind me however of an incident I saw at Flores, Guatemala last March, when I witnessed exactly the same thing happen to a TAG Let-410. In the incident I watched (with horror) there was just enough runway left for the a/c to land safely after the door opened just after rotation.

The little LET seems to be involved in a lot of incidents. Is this just just perhaps the fact that this apparently rugged aircraft operates in hostile environments, or a result of design deficiencies?