On Sat, 7 Jul 2007 22:26:25 +0000 (UTC),
(Paul Tomblin) wrote in :

I looked over and realized the door wasn't
closed. I slowed the plane to 80 knots and tried to get the passenger to
close the door, but he couldn't do it.

Some how I departed with the door unlatched not too long ago too. I
was unable to get it latched until I closed all the cabin air vents.
Then it latched easily.

Now you and I both know there is nothing wrong with having the door open
except for the breeze and noise, and the potential for having your charts
whisked out of your hand at a bad time. But I didn't want to do a two
hour scenic flight with all that noise and wind.

Right. There's no real hazard to flight except possibly the noise
interfering with communications, and the distraction.

I guess it's time to spend some time with an instructor re-learning how to
deal with distractions.

What sort of training would that be? You mean something like during
your instrument training when the instructor kept throwing more and
more at you until you finally overloaded?

Perhaps your less than perfect approach was a result of the same thing
(fatigue, self-consciousness, ...) that precipitated your failure to
check the door latched on your pre-takeoff check list.