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Comment by bovermyer | Hacker News Reader

Yes, but this would be the only place that a pilot could store such a thing. Cargo is not pressurized, which is why the spruce beer can't be flown normally.

And I doubt he had it in his lap the entire flight. It was likely stored in his personal bag.

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Cargo is pressurized. It isnt always heated, but everything inside the skin is pressurized. (On all western airlines, all cargo craft derived from passenger aircraft, boeing/airbus ect)

Even so, the pressure differences are slight compared to the pressures a beer bottle must contain anyway. When planes do depressurize on occassion, the drinks cart doesnt explode.

As the flight in question was to Newfoundland, it could well have been on a smaller turboprop aircraft, many of which have cargo holds located behind the aft pressure bulkhead.

What!? If the aircraft is pressurized, then the cargo area is pressurized too. There aren't any aircraft that have separately pressurized compartments. That would be a very bad design.

Also, I would suspect that the bottles were bagged and in a box and not necessarily right next to the pilot.

Then my information was incorrect. Thanks for the update.

To expand on this, the cylinder of the airplane's fuselage is the pressure vessel (like a submarine). It would take additional structural material to have the pressure vessel be a truncated cylinder (i.e. a half-circle shape), as you're introducing corners.

However, just because the cargo hold is pressurized doesn't mean it's warm in there -- it can be quite cold, and pets stored below occasionally die.

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