Catastophic depressurization in a commercial airliner

"Gord Beaman" wrote in message
...
(Kevin Brooks) wrote:

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...
wrote in message
om...
We all have seen the movies were one pistol shot or what not causes
the side of an airliner explode sucking the people, seats, etc. into
the void. What would happen in the reality? Let's assume the plane is
at the cruising altitude.

Not much unless a window was taken out and even then while
pillows , papers and magazines would be thrown about
people wouldnt be.

The extreme case is the Aloha airlines 737 which last about 20 ft of
cabin
and
managed a safe landing, although some people were killed
on that one.

Keith

I believe there have been accident reports of much smaller holes than
that Aloha example where passengers were indeed sucked out.

I've been following this thread for awhile and have heard of most
of these incidents before. I notice that 'all' the posts refer to
"People etc being sucked out". Isn't the proper term "Blown out"
by the higher air pressure inside?, rather than being "Sucked out
by the lower air pressure outside?.

I realize that the same effect would be realized in either case
but it seems to go against my grain to call it "Sucked out". Any
thoughts?.
--

-Gord.

I agree Gord, the aircraft is pressurised.

Scet

wrote...
We all have seen the movies were one pistol shot or what not causes
the side of an airliner explode sucking the people, seats, etc. into
the void. What would happen in the reality? Let's assume the plane is
at the cruising altitude.

Let's further assume the bullet goes through the aluminum skin. It would result
in a hole about 1/2" in diameter and probably a loud whistling of escaping air.
The outflow valves that control pressurization would close slightly to
compensate for the air loss. You're left with the noise, exacerbated by
screaming/panicking passengers. Put a pillow over the hole to stop the
whistling; that may stop the screaming.

Worse case would be a window. The bullet might cause the entire window to fail.
Since the window is similar in size to the outflow valves, the cabin pressure
would probably begin to decrease slowly as the air rushes out. Unrestrained
objects may be sucked out. A dinner tray or piece of a serving cart could be
used to block the hole, if it could be maneuvered into place.

) writes:

We all have seen the movies were one pistol shot or what not causes
the side of an airliner explode sucking the people, seats, etc. into
the void. What would happen in the reality? Let's assume the plane is
at the cruising altitude.

You mean like Goldfinger???

Well, here's some results of real testing:

http://www.google.com/groups?selm=6b6b4da6.0310041342.3dff4b01%40posting .google.com&output=gplain

This from the TV show "Mythbusters" http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/mythbusters/mythbusters.html
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