A group of us flew from Santa Barbara to San Diego on a TDY via a commuter airline. This avoided going from Sara Maria to LAX to San Diego and looked to be a lot faster and easier.
On the way down we got into the Metro III and noted the overwing emergency exit was open. Then the pilots got on board, sat down, fired up the engines, and then the copilot looked back, did a double take, and came back and secured the exit. It would have been a bit breezy with that hole in the side.
On the way back as we flew up the coast not long before sunset we could see the fog rolling in. It was in the process of obscuring the Santa Barbara Pier as we crossed the harbor area. The Metro III descended toward the runway, then pulled up. The 101 Freeway was visible but the airport was not. CA Coastal fog is often very localized stuff. The pilot explained that they had tried a VOR approach but visibility had deterioted too much in the last few minutes. We would have to get set up for a ILS approach. After circling north of the airport for several minutes the pilot announced it was now too bad for even an ILS approach and we would have to divert to Santa Maria. Then he said that it looked like it had cleared up a bit and they would give it a try. We descended into the fog, then the engines revved up, we had a nice low alititude view of Santa Barbara, climbed over the mountains, and after a bit the pilot announced we were landing at Santa Maria. Just after we hit the runway we entered a wall of fog and the airport closed. Our cars were in Santa Barbara, but we were more or less home so we caught rides to our houses. We decided that maybe the direct route to San Diego was not all that great an idea after all.