Plane door falls off after takeoff, lands in Myrtle Beach yard

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) – A small plane’s door fell into a yard of a home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on Tuesday, after which the plane made an emergency landing at Myrtle Beach International Airport.

The door fell into a yard in the Market Common, a residential area and shopping center just outside the airport, according to homeowner Wendy Hodges.

“It was all intact and it was lying nicely between the two homes,” said Hodges, who shared photos of the door to Facebook. “When I saw it lying there, I was just pretty amazed, and I wondered what had happened to the pilot or whoever was in the plane.”

The Diamond DA40 aircraft took off at 2:53 p.m. on Tuesday before turning around and landing at 3:01 p.m., according to data from FlightAware. The data shows the plane was initially headed to Florence Regional Airport in Florence County, South Carolina, and flew as high as 1,500 feet.

The single-engine plane owned by Lift Aircraft LLC, based in Indianapolis, Indiana, sustained minor damage, the Federal Aviation Administration said. Two people were on board the instructional flight, but neither was injured.

No one on the ground was injured, either.

A similar plane that made an emergency landing in May on a South Carolina highway was also registered to Lift Training Academy.

“Shortly after takeoff, one of our aircraft experienced the loss of a cabin door. The crew aboard executed their standard response procedure to return to the field and landed without incident,” Lift spokesperson Jon Austin told News13. “The cabin door was subsequently recovered and will be examined as part of our investigation into this event.”