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In flight, it takes tremendous exertion to open door of a Cessna 150, 152, 172 or the like. You are pushing about 1000 square inches into a 80 knot wind!

Pipers are easier (any low wind aircraft is because of laws of aerodynamics I won't do into here) But in a high wing A/C, such as Cessna mentioned above, even if unlatched, door opens about three inches and is very hard to open further.

This was no accident.

In flight, it takes tremendous exertion to open door of a Cessna 150, 152, 172 or the like. You are pushing about 1000 square inches into a 80 knot wind!

Not if the aircraft is skidding/slipping with the realative wind coming from starboard (for the port door). Would have to have been a pretty unusual turnning manuever though to get into such a state.

OTOH, the very difficulty argues against a suicide, don't you think?

One thing I have never understood. Why is it that when the secondary clamping latch is not clamped, the door pops open just as you get to best rate, and you cannot latch that sucker no matter how much you pull, tug, and do other things that make you dangerous in a traffic pattern? You are also right. You need to be on steroids to get that door more than an inch or two. Some people would crash their plane rather than say "oops, I've gotta land and actually do my checklist this time" They actually freak out over the door thing.

The only thing worse is the idiot who leaves on the pitot cover, and half way down the runway discovers an airspeed of zero. They then taxi back and get out with the engine running(nobody at the controls) and pull it.

I guess the instructor who was practicing those steep turns around a point will now be practicing steep turns around a spot.