"B2431" wrote in message
...
From: "Kevin Brooks"
Date: 1/1/2004 1:01 AM Central Standard Time
Message-id:


"B2431" wrote in message
...
From: Cub Driver

snip

As to the possibility of explosive decompression, as I understand the
matter, it could happen if a bullet fractured a window

It would still be only annoying. A few ear aches and a lot of noise
along
with
oxygen masks dropping. The person sitting next to the window might lose
his
reading material or dinner.

This has been discussed here before and a Google search would turn up a
lot of
information.

Dan, you are forgetting that there was indeed documented evidence of a
passenger being sucked out of a blown window brought out during that
discussion--a TAM Fokker F28 turboprop somwhere over Brazil (see:
www.crashdatabase.com/cgi-bin/
webdata_crashdatabase.cgi?cgifunction=Search&Airl ine=%5ETAM%24 ). There
was
also a fatality during a 1989 Piedmont Airlines 737 rapid decompression
(www.canard.com/ntsb/ATL/89A099.htm ). As to the non-fatal effexcts, the
experience of an Aer Lingus 737 tends to point to some rather significant
injuries during a 1999 depressurization accident, with lots of ruptured
eardrums and severe nosebleeds, etc. I would not disagree that these
potential problems are far outweighed by the threat of some whacko with a
knife/bomb/etc., said whacko being dispatched by an air marshal, even
with
the remote potential of causing a rapid decompression being preferrable
to
the alternative. But the effect of such a decompression is likely going
to a
bit worse than cleaning your tray table off and causing a few earaches.

Brooks



Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired

I was referring to the blown out window. The passenger you refer to was
blown
out a six foot hole according to your cite.

Heh? "Pressurization was lost at an altitude of 33,000 feet when the right
engine disintegrated, causing pieces of the engine to break two cabin
windows." That does not a six foot hole equal.


I agree a big chunk of skin suddenly departing the aircraft can cause
major
damage and fatalities like the Hawaii Air stewardess deplaning
prematurely.
There was also a case in the 1970s of a DC-10(?) where the aft cargo hatch
blew
and took a row or two of seats with it.

Two windows is not a big chunk of skin. Neither was the Piedmont accident a
"big chunk of skin", and a passenger still died.


On the other hand in the late 1980s a C-141B departed Eglin AFB and a
hatch
over the cargo compartment blew. One of my men was standing directly below
it
at the time. He noticed sudden day light, very loud noise and a bit of
pain. I
believe the aircraft was at approximately 30 kilofeet at the time. It
returned
to Eglin, made a safe landing and everyone sent to the base hospital for
evaluation.

A cargo hatch blew out of a DC-10 in 1974, and it took a big chunk of the
cabin floor above, with passengers, out of the aircraft--the rest of the
aircraft then augered in. Face it, rapid decompression *can* (does not mean
*will be*) be a very bad thing, even when it may just involve a window.

Brooks


Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired