Woman Partially Sucked Out of Jet When Window Breaks
nbcphiladelphia.com
nbcphiladelphia.com
What really surprised me was how cooperative all the passengers were. In those days emergency rows were given to people who needed extra room, so the flight attendants told the elderly folks in the emergency rows to change seats and recruited youngsters like me (I was 25) to sit there and review how and if to open the window (I was the last-resort option and did not get to actually do it). They collected all our shoes and checked everybody's practice crash position. There was no screaming (except during the rather abrupt landing). And unlike what you see today nobody tried to take their cabin baggage with them (they'd told us to empty our pockets, though I was naughty and kept my passport, which later made life a lot easier for me).
One thing is unchanged: I was the first one to leave the arrival hall (this was pre-mobile phones so I wanted to find a phone and get a new flight rather than let the airline deal with it like everyone else did), and there was a camera crew there. I was asked "were you on that flight" and when I said yes they asked, "and how was it?" I said, "exciting but I felt safe the whole time" they switched off the camera, looked annoyed, and went back to watching the exit door. sigh.
And I really got a strong lesson in the real purpose of flight attendants.
Not sure if every country/airline is the same, but it gave me a great appreciation for their role.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2...
The examples of disasters that were caused by or worsened by crowd behavior, such as mass panics or people clogging emergency exits, also seem to involve cognitive failures more than selfishness.
Sorry for not having any citations.
at our core we are still pack/herd animals. And if anyone has tried to herd, say, sheep one quickly learn to keep track of the one(s) in front. Where they go the rest of the herd goes basically without question.
Right, the problem with crowd crush is that the people causing the crush are at the fringes aren't able to see the results that their aggregate forces are causing to people deep in the crowd.
People in emergencies only respond effectively if they've received training and can cope, or if they're being competently instructed during the emergency. Otherwise, they become extremely passive and compliant. That's the role of cabin personnel: to be enforcers and make people do what they say.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Hills_Supper_Club_fire
https://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/14/us/shoe-policy-may-change...
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/31920/in-what-c...
Airlines are safe because they keep learning from mistakes and updating regulations with new evidence.
I think you're better off running in bare feet than damaging the slide or spearing the person ahead of you. That ramp is STEEP (apparently broken ankles are common).
But that would also make the slides more expensive, so it really all depends on what the airline thinks a dead passenger is worth.
Edit: The structural integrity of the slide is provided by pneumatic pressure on a rubber-like material (neoprene?). The thickness of that material could be reduced somewhat if HDPE fibers were added. You're not trying to make the things bulletproof, just shoe-resistant. The end result would be a lighter slide, but it would be an order of magnitude more expensive.
The captain is cool as a cucumber. The controller is sweating bullets!
Wow, yeah. 17:03: "Now is your airplane physically on fire?" "No, it's not on fire, but part of it's missing."
The poor pilots might not have even known that the passenger was only partially pulled out the window. It's even more impressive that the captain was able to act so calmly when she might have been under the impression that a passenger had just been ejected from her plane!
Meaning, don't fly over downtown so that if your plane comes apart you won't kill large numbers of people below you.
Pretty intense stuff.
Pilot: Southwest 1380, we'd like to turn - to start turning inbound.
Approach: Southwest 1380, turn, just start turning southbound there. There's a Southwest 737 on a four-mile final. You'll be turning southbound. Start looking for the airport, it's off to your right and slightly behind you there, and altitude is your discretion. Use caution for the downtown area. Maintain, advise you maintain at or above 2200 per the MVA.
I believe this is the point, 34 minutes into the flight, at which the pilot then turns southbound toward the airport, passing almost directly over downtown Philadelphia:
https://flightaware.com/live/flight/SWA1380/history/20180417...
https://www.skybrary.aero/index.php/Minimum_Vectoring_Altitu...
"The minimum vectoring altitude in each sector provides 1000 ft above the highest obstruction in non-mountainous areas and 2000 ft above the highest obstacle in designated mountainous areas. The MVA is the lowest altitude that meets obstacle clearance requirements in the airspace specified. "
In this the MVA appeared to refer to the controller's instructions for the altitude required to pass 1000 feet above the tallest buildings in the downtown area. Again, the "caution" related to downtown was mentioned in between the controller's statement that the pilot could use her discretion for the altitude and the statement that he "advise[s]" her to "maintain at or above 2200 [feet] for the MVA" in that region.
So in context, I believe the controller was just advising the pilot to attempt to maintain enough altitude to pass safely above the downtown buildings, rather than to avoid flying over the downtown area at all. Again, it appears that she did fly over the downtown area as part of her approach. At the time of its southbound turn, the plane was at an elevation of about 3300 feet and then it passed over downtown at an elevation near 2600 feet or so.
[Edit: I saw another transcript that said "per the MVA" instead of "for the MVA", and I've corrected my transcript above. This makes me even more convinced that the "caution for the downtown area" refers to an established precaution, although other aircraft might not have a reason to come as close to the downtown buildings on a typical approach.]
Listen to some guard frequencies with aviators displaying such a lack of professionalism it may make you question how we’re allowed to fly.
What you’re hearing is hundreds or thousands of hours of flight time; many of which are spent practicing forced landings, and the radio language that becomes second nature.
VHF requires you to be incredibly clear when speaking, a single shared frequency enforces short messages that are to the point.
I can pretty much guarantee neither of the flight crew thought about any potential inquiry until after they had made a safe landing; as that would’ve been their only focus.
The pilot sounds cool, but I'm not sure she's calm. The initial communication with approach complaining about frequency changes (before even identifying) strikes me as odd.
More concretely, many of the transmissions are without identification or readbacks, some stepping on other stations.
Perhaps I'm overthinking, but to my ear, it's the pilot who's bricking it.
Similarly, the controllers aren't just managing the traffic in their area. They're also coordinating with their management, other controllers that are managing neighboring sectors, emergency management folks, etc.
First mention of the emergency is around 11m20.
As for her speech patterns, she's trying to be extremely clear and specific with her speech while dealing with stuff like emergency checklists and keeping the plane aloft. As anyone in a life-or-death crisis should be doing. Speaking precisely and clearly is worth overwhelmingly more than speaking quickly and getting something wrong.
This is perhaps the grossest backseat-driving I've seen on Hacker News and I have seen some gross ones.
I always like referencing this incident from a few years ago as an example of that:
"Uhhh, I don't know, the landing was good but she could have been a little quicker on her speech. 8/10 would consider further training."
Her calm is impressive. That's what pilots are paid for.
On the one hand, I'd definitely be happy to see her on my next flight, but on the other, she's a woman so all her responses have to be seen through some mechanism where her emotions have betrayed her.
Curious if you'd give this kind of scrutiny if the pilot were a man.
(Disclaimer: ex-USAF here though not air crew.)
https://heavy.com/news/2018/04/tammie-jo-shults-pilot-southw...
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-pilot-who-saved-that-s...
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?node=se14.2.91_1123 :
(b) Except in an emergency, no person may operate an aircraft contrary to an ATC instruction in an area in which air traffic control is exercised.
(c) Each pilot in command who, in an emergency, or in response to a traffic alert and collision avoidance system resolution advisory, deviates from an ATC clearance or instruction shall notify ATC of that deviation as soon as possible.
https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?node=se14.3.121_1557 :
(a) In an emergency situation that requires immediate decision and action the pilot in command may take any action that he considers necessary under the circumstances. In such a case he may deviate from prescribed operations procedures and methods, weather minimums, and this chapter, to the extent required in the interests of safety.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/91.3 :
§91.3 Responsibility and authority of the pilot in command.
(a) The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft.
(b) In an in-flight emergency requiring immediate action, the pilot in command may deviate from any rule of this part to the extent required to meet that emergency.
A very obvious example where the Rules explicitly tell pilots to disobey ATC is instructions from local technology that isn't co-ordinated with the ground, such as Ground Proximity Warning System and Traffic Collision Avoidance System. If these systems decide that overall "Climb, Crossing Climb, Climb Now!" is the correct instruction, but your controller suggests descending, the Rules are clear that you should all obey the machine and it will probably be fine because the machine is doing its own real time conflict resolution and re-assessing the local situation.
The Rules say you should tell the controller why you didn't obey their instructions but again, not as a greater priority than flying the plane.
I was referring to § 91.123 (a), which reads in part (emphasis added): “When an ATC clearance has been obtained, no pilot in command may deviate from that clearance unless an amended clearance is obtained, an emergency exists, or the deviation is in response to a traffic alert and collision avoidance system resolution advisory.”
I.e. when ATC tells you “turn left heading 135,” unless you have a very good reason not to, you must turn left to heading 135.
The part I didn’t emphasize is of course exactly what you’re saying.
I suppose another way to phrase what I meant is that while ATC is the boss “in the small,” the PIC is the boss “in the large,” and I don’t think non-pilots think of it that way.
Or trying to navigate to a diversion airfield without first communicating to ensure that it is usable.
Aviate, then navigate and communicate.
Only after all those things are done, should you take time to talk to the controllers. In these situations, you do what's necessary and then, when convenient, you advise the controllers of the actions you are taking.
As someone with a relevant background, I think it's entirely wrong, but it's presented in an entirely respectful manner. Saying something that is very clearly wrong is good because then we can explain why it's wrong. Or am I missing something?
It's like a non-programmer opening up some source code, then leaving a comment that the letter X is used too much because it's not used that much in articles on the NY Times.
A "respectful manner" first involves asking oneself, "what are the important aspects of flying an injured plane that I am ignorant of? In light of that, are my criticisms valid?" From where I sit, the original post did none of that. Nope, just "derpy, derp, she did not do it the way I, a person who has probably never flown a plane or handled a radio in an emergency situation, would do it." To put it more bluntly, it came across like someone talking out their arse.
I enjoy browsing HN because the conversation are usually of a higher intellectual calibre, and I am here to learn as much as to contribute knowledge that is within my own domain.
Therefore I believe it is a high priority to keep the signal to noise ratio well pegged in the 'signal' zone. Comments like the above are merely 'noise' which is based on ignorant preconceptions and doesn't really elicit meaningful discussion or move the conversation forward in any way.
I rarely downvote, but do so when I think the post does not add significant value to the topic at hand.
Every aviation incident discussed in /r/aviation is full of armchair analysts and critics. People on the internet like to put out controversial opinions about what people have done to feel relevant. Much like you ended up doing ascribing this to a sexism issue despite it being based on pace of speech.
Note also that downvotes don't prevent responding with why something is wrong.
Think of what it means if downvotes are symmetric with upvotes. Upvotes are given for being right, being funny, being respectful, and a variety of other reasons. Nobody really asks why something is being upvoted. But people often take downvotes personally or assume they mean something specific, and people often ask why downvotes are being cast.
Also be aware that the HN guidelines recommend not discussing voting, but your question is honest and you're newer here, so I hope this helps.
"Two 16-year-old girls with Chinese passports were found dead outside the aircraft soon after the crash, having been thrown out of the aircraft during the accident.[1]:108–110[37][38][39][40] Neither victim was using her seatbelt.[1]:108-110 It is likely that these passengers would have remained in the cabin and survived if they had been wearing their seatbelts.[1]:xii,110"
It has happened to a standing flight attendant, and in that case a very large section of the aircraft had suddenly separated.
Of course, buckling up during take offs and landings will certainly reduce your chances of injury/death in the event of a crash. And buckling up during flight will reduce your chances of injury during unexpected turbulence.
I'm really confused as to the report that the cabin crew was trying to plug the hole with various objects. That just makes zero sense.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/17/us/philadelphia-southwest-fli...
"Tranchin told WPVI the crew was frantically trying to plug a hole left when a window shattered."
There's currently too many conflicting accounts.
If you notice the oxygen masks that the pilots use (and that fighter pilots use), they are a very different beast, and have secure latching mechanisms to hold the mask tightly against your face with NO gaps at all. (Also a reason why beards are banned for flight crew in the air force - can't have ANY gaps where the O2 can leak out).
My old flight instructor used to fly jets in the Air Force back in the 50's and 60's, when the cockpits were unpressurised, and he said that at altitudes around 60,000+ feet, if your oxygen mask failed, you had about 1 second of consciousness. In fact, he said at those altitudes, the pressure differential was so great that your diaphragm actually couldn't expand to enable normal breathing, and they used to have liquid oxygen pressure fed through their masks. If they wanted to breath, they just opened their mouth and freezing cold LOX (which vaporised almost instantly at that altitude) would be rammed down their gullets...
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/19/woman-sucked-sou...
It seems reasonable that a band of fabric over your lap wouldn't restrain you from being pulled upward out of your seat, unless it was pulled extremely tight.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2018/04/1...
Skimming a list of aviation incidents, it seems like this ends the longest passenger-death-free streak in US aviation history. Given how much more flights there are it's pretty remarkable how safe air travel has become, this tragic death notwithstanding.
I'm not sure how I'll ever get over it. I've tried many things. Short of a tranquilizer shot, I'm pretty sure a failure like this would take my life through anxiety related heart complications alone.
You're not alone. I have really bad anxiety during turbulence too, and I used to skydive competitively. I've flown with people who have worse anxiety, but mine seems to be getting worse over time. I wish I could control it, because I know turbulence is natural and not dangerous, and it still makes my blood boil. It's preventing me from traveling more.
The things that have helped me most are deep breathing exercises, and noticing what "turbulence" in a car or bus feels like compared to an airplane (as in, often worse in a wheeled vehicle and it doesn't bother me.) I haven't really tried any drugs.
Had a good conversation earlier about this, on an article about turbulence, if that interests you... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14993955
And the fact that an engine can explode like this and the plane still lands safely makes me feel even less like the plane is a fragile or precarious thing.
As long as you are at several thousand feet, altitude will do a lot of work in your favour. There is plenty of time for a trained pilot to do one of many different recovery maneuvers in the unlikely event shit hits the fan. That high up in the sky, the pilot almost has to intentionally want to crash you to succeed.
What personally helps me in the cruise part of the flight is a particular kind of mindfulness. I observe the turbulence, and recognise it for what it is without judging it as good or bad. But since my mind is so strictly sey on judgment, as a substitute for judging each individual event of turbulence, I try to judge the pilots response to it. Do they climb to find a more stable altitude? Do they slow down? Turn to a different heading? And does it work? Is the amount of turbulence, on a larger scale, decreasing? Does it at first increase, and then decrease?
That sort of thing keeps me occupied in a way more disconnected from the evolutionary panic of shit-fuck-I-feel-like-I'm-in-a-free-fall.
Lots of them have pretty tremendous side effects; but they can commonly be used as-needed by folks suffering from specific anxieties -- unlike many other psych drugs.
But out of nowhere, since last year it doesn't happen anymore, I can fly again without much worry, even sleep again during flights.
Not sure what caused it, or how I got over it.
I hate when people act like weed has zero risks and tout it as the cure for anxiety. Based on my experiences with several different psychiatrists and therapists, it seems that anxiety problems caused by marijuana are fairly common in the patients that they see.
Edit: if you actually want something safe to treat flight anxiety, ask your doctor about a medium acting benzo or a beta blocker. These medications have been well studied by the medical community, and pharmacies ensure that you will receive the exact dosing required. This self medication stuff is complete crap.
The only turbulence I've experienced over the Atlantic was more than twenty years ago - we hit completely unexpected turbulence and I actually caught a flight attendant as she flew by (all those years of gymnastics came in handy).
Another passenger, Marty Martinez, said that a female flier suffered a heart attack in the chaos.
“Someone on the plane had a heart attack, and it looks like an engine blew out, then a window was blown open,” he said on Facebook. “We are still on the plane and they are trying to revive a woman on the plane.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/8cxru9/southwest_...
Considering the amount of flights Southwest operates, three major events over the span of two years seems like a tremendous success -- Especially since nobody has died!
This accident is undoubtedly traumatizing but extremely rare. Is there any meaningful substance to this?
The most interesting comparison is probably between maintenance facilities that work on comparable planes. So if there are some that don't have any incidents, you maybe conclude that 3 is really bad.
Wikipedia suggests Southwest has at least 700 aircraft running 6 flights per day, implying 4,200+ flights per day, implying about 1.5+ million flights per year.
1-3 flights with major incidents out of 1.5 million? I would hardly call that a "wave of malfunctions" as it stands.
But I do agree comparing maintenance facilities would be interesting.
Several years ago they had a case of their fuselage ripping open midflight, and the reason was that the stress of taking off and landing puts a lot more stress on their planes.
It's surprising that the FAA would allow them to have an interval 4X that of other airlines. Well, perhaps more surprising would be if other airlines would do 4X more maintenance checks than Southwest if they could get away with less.
A reasonably common model is that the airline effectively leases the engine, or at least contracts out maintenance to the manufacturer who also receives telemetry during flights.
Saying it's an airlines fault doesn't mean much, assuming they've kept to the prescribed maintenance schedule (which may well be mandated by the manufacturer). Southwest was fined in 2008 for poor maintenance practice, but that was a decade ago now.
The article is junk editorializing narrative-building, though. They could have written "only three major events over the span of two years" like you did, and readers would have no way to judge if "only" is correct or not.
https://twitter.com/VeronicaRochaLA/status/98632461126341427...
27 hours before the flight, a cockpit window was replaced. Unfortunately, 84 of the 90 bolts used by the maintenance crew had a diameter 0.66 mm less than the documentation called for, so the window was not held in place as strongly as it should have been.
On top of that, this plane had a design flaw. Its windows were bolted on from the outside, not the inside, meaning that the bolts had to hold against the force from the difference between the pressure in the pressurized cabin and outside. Bolts on windows bolted from the inside only have to deal with much smaller forces, such as wind during takeoff and at low altitude, and then only until the pressure difference gets high enough to take all of the force off the bolts.
So...window pops out, and pilot starts getting sucked out. His legs got caught on the flight controls, and a flight attendant was able to grab the pilot's belt and hold on. The pilot was getting blown all around by the wind, and the guy holding on was getting bruised by all the motion, and was also getting frostbite. They could also see the pilot's face hitting the window, and saw his eyes were open but not blinking. They assumed he was dead, but decided to keep holding on, out of concern that if they let the body go it might get sucked into an engine and they already had enough problems (pilot's legs were still tangled in the flight controls, and they also could not hear the radios because of the noise from the wind).
They did manage to get down OK, and everyone was surprised to find the pilot had survived. He had frostbite, shock, bruising, and broken arm and wrist on one side and thumb on the other. The flight attendant who had held him the most had a dislocated shoulder, and frostbite damage to his face and one eye.
This incident was covered in the documentary series "Air Disasters" ("Mayday" in Canada, "Air Crash Investigation" elsewhere). Here's the Wikipedia article on the accident for complete details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_5390
After that there are also specific cases where sitting in the middle you are for example more likely to be injured by trolleys or falling luggage. Also sitting close to a door can be important in case a quick exit is needed.
Before you knew it, this indescribable wave of anxiety just hung like a cloud. People started looking around, so others did the same. My friend began his descent into full panic attack mode. The college aged girl in front of me started crying. My buddy soaked through his shirt in sweat. People were trying to call and text loved ones to say what might be their goodbyes. There were a few "get me the fuck off this plane right the fuck now!!!!" freakouts. I think they actually helped the situation a bit because most people who were freaking felt better about their lesser level of freak. I don't remember how long it took the crew to tell us what happened, or the partial story. The hydraulics system went down, they said. But we were too big and full of fuel to land at Vegas, so we had to do circles above the desert to burn gas before we could land. I couldn't get why they didn't just go to LAX or something like that.
5 hours we were in the air. The turbulence above the desert is not great. So, you have lack of information, a faulty plane, and the inability to land all happening at once. So...much...vomit.
You know what was cool, though? The older gentleman in front of me consoling the college girl. Hugging her, holding her hand, asking her questions about her life to keep her mind busy. Then, pill bottles. That's what I'll always remember. People were passing around their downers for anyone who felt they needed 'em!
Finally, we were walked through emergency landing procedures and we went in for the landing. Nobody knew what to expect. I caught a glimpse of all the emergency lights at the far end of the runway, where we were headed.
The landing wasn't that bad. We survived. JetBlue told us they'd take care of everyone; cars, hotels, food. Then they told us there was another flight leaving soon for NYC and they automatically rebooked us all on it. Up to us if we took it, though.
I've never seen a group of people move that quickly towards the bar. We all did shots. Laughed, told dumb jokes. A crew rented a van to drive back East. I told my panicked buddy that, statistically speaking, he will never take a safer flight in his entire life than this next one. (Joke's on him, I'm a marketer, not a statistician!) We slept like babies on the flight, got into Brooklyn at 7am, hugged and kissed my girlfriend.
Edit: Forgot the part where the flight attendant (who was awesome) from the doomed flight ended up sitting in front of us on the next one. We asked her to give it to us straight and she basically said we lost 2 (of 3, if I recall correctly) hydraulics systems, then something else I can't remember. She said in her 17 years of flying it was the closest she ever cam to going down, believing it was a real possibility.
Its basically the difference between seat belts that work, and seat belts that don't work. There's plenty of space in between perfect landings and crashes that kill everyone onboard. Seat belts matter in that in-between space, as today's incident shows. For us, the peace of mind was totally worth it.
Edit: The FAA's pamphlet on the topic. Its quite readable, despite coming from a regulatory agency. https://www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/...
However, an infant is much safer in a car seat strapped to their own seat of course.
Here's to hoping being strapped into a carseat would offer enough protection for such a tragic and rare event.
The engine inlet was shredded with metal bent outward. The pane of a window just behind the left wing was missing.
There's also an interesting blog by a UK Professor who studies the safety of crowds in various disaster scenarios: http://fseg.gre.ac.uk/blog/
He found that the closer you are to an exit row, the marginally better your odds of survival.
[1] https://alum.mit.edu/slice/scientists-crash-plane-name-safet...
It's a common trope that the rear of the aircraft is safer, since it usually crashes nose-first. Back when the rear rows were the designated smoking section, one would always hear a few rounds of "smoking saved my life!" after a fatal plane crash.
I say "may" because if a person dies on a flight from a heart attack, it doesn't count in the safety statistics. I suspect that it doesn't count even if the heart attack was plausibly brought on by an in-flight safety incident. But if the woman who was partially sucked out is the one who died (unclear at the time I write this), then it's the first one in corporate history for Southwest. That's impressive.
It doesn't make today any less tragic, though...
So, I think it's premature to say that she would have lived even if she was wearing her seatbelt(was she?). But generally I agree it is a good idea to strap in
> A Southwest Airlines flight landed safely in Philadelphia Tuesday after the jet violently depressurized when a piece of an engine flew into and broke a window, according to passenger accounts
Violent is relative.
> The plane descended by more than 3,000 feet per minute until the pilots leveled out around 10,000 feet.
3000 fpm is nothing crazy, especially for an emergency descent with a depressurized cabin. I'm glad they included the following line:
> Arthur Wolk, an aviation expert, said that is a modest rate of descent and indicated that the pilot had control of the aircraft.
The plane was never "going down" as one passenger is quoted saying.
I try to be empathetic of the flying public when reading about in-flight emergencies. For passengers, a shredded engine and a broken window are terrifying. The deck angle at 3000 fpm is steeper than they've ever seen. I can understand why a passenger might use the phrase "going down."
Obviously for pilots, engine failure and rapid depress are so textbook as to be boring. The captain practices responding to these emergencies every time she's in the sim.
I don't envy the reporters. Balancing these two perspectives has got to be a hard job. And I can see how it's easy to get swept up in the emotionality.
What is interesting is the similarity to http://www.star-telegram.com/news/business/article101413922....
Same airline, same engine. Ryanair have put plenty of hours on CFM56's without blowing any up, so what are Southwest doing different?
The math gets pretty bad when you try to average all that out but if you ignore that and do it anyway (science!) then you get 1,743 yearly flights per plane for Southwest and 1,503-1,993 for Ryanair (fleet size of 301-399 respectively). So they're likely very comparable, which makes sense because neither airline could likely afford to have its planes sitting around idle for any more than absolutely necessary.
[0] https://www.ryanair.com/us/en/useful-info/about-ryanair/flee...
If we get to use this when a plane's window breaks, what do we say about the Byford Dolphin incident?
> Hellevik, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient and in the process of moving to secure the inner door, was forced through the 60 centimetres (24 in) diameter opening created by the jammed interior trunk door by escaping air and violently dismembered, including bisection of his thoracoabdominal cavity, which further resulted in expulsion of all of the internal organs of his chest and abdomen, except the trachea and a section of small intestine, and of the thoracic spine. These were projected some distance, one section later being found 10 metres (30 ft) vertically above the exterior pressure door.
We're nearing the ceiling of available acronyms with "violent." I guess "catastrophic" could apply?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin#Diving_bell_acc...
Flying has a absolute ceiling on the pressure differential of one single atmosphere - and you have to be in space to get it.
This means that an airplane depressurization event can exert a maximum of around 14 PSI. A diving depressurization event at 100 feet is 50 PSI.
EDIT: Re-reading your comment, I'm helping prove your point. So, there's that. :D
That's not true.
100 atmospheres is about 1000 meters.
~300 meters (~30 atmospheres) is the world records reached with Scuba equpment.
An ADS got a navy diver down to ~2000 feet (60 atmospheres).
And the deepest a human has gone in a submersible vehicle is 35,858 which only barely clears 1000 atmospheres (~1060).
Not necessarily! I thought the route you were going down was that, relatively speaking, this was near the "maximum decompression threshold" of the context - airplanes. As in, "it doesn't really get more 'violent' than this for airplanes, so violent is the right word."
Thanks for giving me more diving nightmares though lol
In the Buford Dolphin accident, the pressure differential was 9 bar/130psi.
But that would just being pedantic; it is an exaggeration.
Well, let's see:
√ "violently dismembered"
√ "bisection of his thoracoabdominal cavity" (i.e, body cut in half)
√ "expulsion of all of the internal organs"
>Hellevik was about to close the door between the chamber system and the trunk when the chamber explosively decompressed from a pressure of nine atmospheres to one atmosphere. One of the tenders, 32-year-old William Crammond of Great Britain, and all four of the divers were killed instantly; the other tender, Saunders, was severely injured.[10]
No!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontrolled_decompression#Exp...
adjectives?
Sidenote, I've noticed a lot of "wrong word" choices when I read through my posts here. There's no reason for it as far as I can tell... native english speaker, usually posting with a keyboard, hell I have a creative writing degree.
But I keep catching slipups like that. Super weird.
EDIT for additional nerdery: NYC and Philly are about 80 mi apart, so keeping that assumption of an airspeed of roughly 500MPH, they were in the air about 10 minutes.
(1)YET ANOTHER EDIT: Just heard somebody on the flight died, so using the word "fun" above isn't quite right to do. But I'm leaving it, with this note.
- they lost an engine
- the cabin depressurized rapidly
- there was unknown damage to the slats
- there was possible other structural damage to the aircraft
- someone nearly got sucked out of the plane
Given all that it seems like a major exercise in backseat driving to conclude that the plane was 'never going down', at that point in time passengers should be excused for thinking that might happen.
After all the only reason you are writing this is because you know that they landed more or less in one piece but that wasn't a given at that point in time.
The only reason I wrote that is because I think it helps us to keep in mind that journalists don't necessarily know any more about this subject than they do about technology, although there are no glaring issues with this article in particular. Just take any technical/engineering/process points with a grain of salt, that's all.
The journalist didn't say the plane was going down, the person on the plane said it and the journalist quoted them, accurately.
Since this article yesterday there have been many more quotes by passengers on that plane who thought they were going to die.
There's zero reason here to claim shoddy journalism, not for this article specifically, nor any reason to bring up journalism in general. Yes journalists are not engineers. The flip side is also true -- engineers are bad at relaying the big picture story because they nitpick details that are misleading or unimportant, and completely miss the primary points as they relate to other people. I'm guessing you are not a journalist? This wasn't a modest event, and this wasn't a non-event, so as far as I'm concerned the only grain of salt here is being reserved for you.
Violent seems entirely accurate, the pressure was enough to pull someone halfway out the window, and the poor woman is in critical condition. It was literally violent.
> The plane was never "going down"
If I were on a plane that experienced an engine explosion, hull breach, and depressurization, I'm sure I'd assume it's going down. It was terrifying enough to give someone a heart attack.
It's also hard to claim definitively that the plane was never going down. Multiple safety systems failed, and the hull was breached. This could easily have brought down the plane. They were lucky it wasn't worse.
> Don't forget their tenuous relationship with logic and facts when reading this article.
I don't see any tenuous logic or facts here... everything quoted appears accurate. I doubt the expert commentary from the ground that the situation was modest is much comfort to anyone who was on the flight.
Definitely not. Some quick googling suggests that 7000 fpm is not uncommon in emergency situations, and really you are only limited by the comfort level of the passengers (as you come back to a lower pressure-altitude). If they drop spoilers and go for ground you can probably be on the ground within 5 minutes flat, assuming a nearby airport.
(and with a depressurized cabin, the damage is really already done in terms of passenger comfort)
A friend was on a flight where a passenger had a heart attack in-flight, he said it was like being on an elevator and his inner ear was screwed up for days.
BTW, 3000fpm is quite a lot since the plane was not pressurized.
To compare, GA (small) planes typically descent at 500-700 fpm (my wife complains if I descend faster than 1000 fpm :) ). Jets usually do 1000-1500 fpm. Elevators in skyscrapers can go up to 1500-2000 fpm. The limiting factor is that for many people feeling partially weight-less causes nausea. Not to mention the pressure change (especially for kids and sick/old people).
[1] https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/southwest-flight-emergency/...
If a piece of shrapnel flies through the window and impales the person on the other side, you can have a fatality at sea level, no depressurization needed.
Yeah, but maybe while it's not violent to you, it certainly seems violent for someone that hasn't experienced this before.
:-)
Thoughts are with her family and friends at this sad time.
CFM are going to have to move fast on this one. Catastrophic engine failure like this could seriously dent people's faith in air travel (also, the CFM-56 engine has quite a history of blade failure leading to extreme engine damage[0]).
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFM_International_CFM56#Fan_bl...
The distinction in use between 'blow' and 'suck' seems to be the direction of travel.
If items are moving away from some centralized point in random directions, we refer to them as being 'blown'. As in blown up.
If items are moving TOWARDS a single point, we refer to them as being sucked.
As all the items in the plane -- including the poor passenger -- were momentarily being impelled towards a single point (the window), the use of 'suck' is appropriate.