Punctured pressure cabin.

"B2431" wrote in message
...
From: "Kevin Brooks"

snip

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.

OK, mia culpa, I was reading the incident just below the flight to which
you
referred.

In the incident you cite I wonder what he actually died of considering the
only
other injuries were "minor." Heart attack maybe?

I think you are mixing up the *two* incidents I cited specifically. In the
one you are discussing involving the windows blowing out (TAM F-28 over
Brazil), the fatality left the aircraft rather abruptly via one of those
windows, from what I gathered based upon looking at a few sources. The other
fatality occured on a Piedmont 737, which underwent an unspecified rapid
decompression with the one individual later dying at the hospital--I would
imagine likely heart or respiratory failure, or a combination thereof.

Brooks

Dan, U. S. Air Force, retired