I think that's the deal...maybe that's just the cargo doors.
Cap'n?
-mini
Our rampers close the doors, but we have a specific procedure for verifying their security. Works pretty well.
-The pilot does a tactile check of the nose baggage doors, which are not covered by the door warning light.
-When the passengers are all loaded, the ramper closes the main cabin door for us. While he's doing that, the pilot observes him rotate the handle all the way to the stop, then do a tactile check of the door. In my case, I watched him secure the door, and was confident that it was secure. That's simply based on
my experience in the airplane, however. I watched him push and pull slightly on it after latching it, and from my experience if it wasn't fully latched it would have popped open at that time.
-The ramper signals the pilot that he's about to begin a second walkaround and door check. The pilot responds with another signal, and that second check is commenced.
-Once the ramper is done with his door check, he signals to the pilot that all the doors are secure. The pilot then checks the door warning light, and if it's extinguished, signals to start engines.
There is currently no requirement for a pilot to check the main cabin door after the ramper closes it, even with the MEL in place. It's usually due to CG issues that can occur with 9 passengers onboard; if one of the pilots gets out of his seat, the airplane
could potentially tail-over. I really like the idea when CG isn't critical, though.
So, that being said, here's what I did:
I continued the takeoff. Passing through 1000' I engaged the autopilot and pulled out the QRH to see what it said about the problem. The QRH only addresses actual open doors, so it wasn't much help (pretty surprising; they did a nice job with this QRH). I then looked at each door and could tell that nothing was open, and that all the doors, at least from my seat, appeared to be secure. After that I pulled out the logbook and read over the previous writeup about how it'd illuminated in-flight.
My decision was made a bit easier after that because the light actually extinguished as I climbed up a bit higher. When that happened, I continued to my destination, and found the door to be perfectly secure when we got on the ground.
But, what would everyone have done if it didn't go away?