explosive decompression

[Tristan]

I find the occurance of explosive decompression, although very rare, to be quite facinating. Hollywood has created false myths about this situation, i.e. movies where people getting sucked out of a a hole the size of a bullet etc, but a UAL 747 in 80s encountered a situation where several pax were blown out of the A/C because the cargo door seal failure created a hole about 5 feet in diameter.

I am interested to know what the unfortunate pax who were blown out would have experienced. Would they have been killed instantly or would they have been conscious for a brief period or for the whole duration of their plummet to the earth? I feel kind of geeky asking this question, but it has crossed my mind when coming across safety material re cabin pressure. My thinking comes to a few possibilities;

1. the force of the explosion would probably knock them out instantly
2. at such high speeds agaisnt relative airflow, they would be thrown into slip stream and killed by wake turbulence if not hit by part of aircraft.
3. lack of oxygen would cause pass out, but would take at least half a minute for this to occur (depending on alt), plus they are plummeting to the ground at fast rate.
4. Freezing air temp, but again not a factor to cause instant death or unconscienceness.

Your probably thinking I have too much time on my hands to think about this (which I do), but penny for your thoughts...

[riot shields]

mythbusters did an episode on explosive decompression.

http://www.gadgetopia.com/post/2606

[falconvalley]

That mythbusters episode is a bad example of explosive decompression.

Imagine 8 pounds per square inch trying to pull you and your seat out of the airplane after a bomb pretty much jarred you loose. My math might be screwed up but it should be 2400 pounds of force. That's alot of force. Don't know about consciousness. The higher the altitude and the more sudden and swift the decompression, the shorter the time of useful consciousness.

[seagull]

Clearly, there is no way to know about what the people experienced. Too many variables to even start to speculate, and none of it really matters anyway.

As for decompression, it is very improbable for large aircraft. In the airplane I fly, we could literally lose 3 cabin windows and the system could hold the cabin at safe levels at cruise altitude.

[killbilly]

I've read that in a number of cases of suicides where someone jumped off a building, they actually died of cardiac arrest before impact. I would imagine this could happen as well if you end up doing an involuntary exit procedure at FL350 and the environmental factors didn't kill you immediately.

[E6BAV8R]

If someone was to get blown out of the aircraft, the biggest immediate danger would be hypoxia - not to mention the immediate reaction people will have from being forced out of the aircraft and moving all over the place will usually put them unconcious right then and there. You then have to worry about the -50 degree temperatures; which shouldn't be much of a problem after your already unconcious.

[Killtron2000]

There was that british airways captain who had his windscreen pop at cruising altitude and was sucked partially out of the airplane. He survived although he went unconscious almost immediately and doesn't remember any of it.

[Tristan]

There was that british airways captain who had his windscreen pop at cruising altitude and was sucked partially out of the airplane. He survived although he went unconscious almost immediately and doesn't remember any of it.

So I guessing his immediate unconsciousness was due to hypoxia? Some people don't remember things because of shock or trauma. THis is quite common in car accidents, the brain has the ability to block any memories of extreme emotion.

Clearly, there is no way to know about what the people experienced. Too many variables to even start to speculate, and none of it really matters anyway.

But we can analyse the possibilities. My main question is whether it is impossible to survive the intial event of being blown out of an aircraft at high altititude and speed? If the answer is no because of lack of oxygen, then what if we take the oxygen factor out of the equation?