Wakefield man recounts losing Boutique Airlines’ plane door before take-off

IRONWOOD, Mich. (KBJR/WLUC) - Imagine sitting on a plane and the aircraft’s door flies off moments before take-off.

That’s exactly what happened to a man from Wakefield on his flight from Minneapolis to Ironwood Wednesday afternoon.

That opening you see in the image above is where the plane’s emergency exit door was. Tom Yon was seated just feet from there on what he described as a small 8-person plane, flown by Boutique Airlines, a private aircraft company. He told KBJR-TV about the moment it happened.

“We were just about to take off probably going, I don’t know 100 miles per hour, and the door just flew off, a loud bang, and the door flew off and the noise and the wind and everything. I didn’t even see my bag get sucked out of the plane. I got it right here, this bag right here, got sucked right out of the plane. They gave it to me about an hour after take-off,” Yon told KBJR-TV during an interview. “It was scary, it was scary. If there would have been a person sitting on the plane with a baby on their lap, I don’t know what would have happened.”

Yon says no one appeared to be hurt. The Metropolitan Airports Commission confirmed the incident happened around 3:00 p.m. May 5. Metropolitan Airports Commission officials say the plane never actually left the ground after the door came off. It returned to the gate at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport and the door was found nearby.

KBJR-TV reached out to Boutique Airlines but didn’t hear back.

Yon and others plan to take concerns to the Gogebic County Board’s public meeting on Monday morning.

Yon hopes they’ll consider taking action against the airline.

Yon and several other passengers on that flight decided not to fly back to Ironwood. They ending up taking a ride-share back to Ironwood, which was a $400 trip.

Copyright 2021 KBJR/WLUC. All rights reserved.