What actually kills you when a plane explodes?

Is it the explosion, shock, decompression or simply hitting the ground?

Yes. I’d imagine it is.

Horrible to think about it but I’m guessing any one of the above (and other options I’m sure) depending on where you’re sat in the plane and the nature of the explosion.

Being hit in the throat by one of those little pringle tubs.

Nut allergy.

Boring sensible answer, depends on the nature of the explosion, could simply be smoke inhalation.

I don’t really want to think about it in great detail, but I doubt anyone is still alive at the point they hit the floor.

Sadly, the above is not necessarily the case.

shock

after you’ve had a big surprise the heart attack gets you

<serious>

any particular exploding plane you were thinking of, or just a generalised irrational fear of flying?

If Quirrel’s on the plane it’d be blood loss when the handle flies off the tap on the washhand basin in the toilet and severs his tadger mid flow

You should always keep the weird gherkin thing from the tray meal handy as an easy method of suicide in case of explosive decompression.

Just hoping the poor souls who didn’t make it to Egypt didn’t know much about it.

Just hoping the poor souls who didn’t make it to Egypt didn’t know much about it

so you chose a tactless title to express your grief?

Supposedly its not unknown in explosions for people to black out from lack of oxygen at high level, only to regain consciousness during the fall. Lots of evidence of people scrabbling to undo seatbelts etc during the fall, and evidence of dirt under fingernails from those who survive the landings. Not a nice way to go.

so you chose a tactless title to express your grief?

Uh oh…the professionally offended are here. I fear we are all going to die in a fireball fuelled by righteous indignation.

Conveyor belt abrasions.

a plane explodes

Just hoping the poor souls who didn’t make it to Egypt didn’t know much about it

Do you know something the press doesn’t? Still being reported as “missing”. No reports of an explosion.

OK pretend I wrote from rather than to.

Depends on a lot of factors.

Some people are killed by the explosion or by objects hitting them as a result of the explosion.

If there is a rapid deceleration (eg the front being blown off) then people can have their necks snapped.

Depending on altitude there will also be the effect of de-pressurisation resulting in asphyxiation but it depends on the person and how fast the plane/person descends to denser air as to whether this kills them.

If the plane somehow keeps on flying and is not fully breached then smoke might be an issue but there would normally be a hole from an explosion.

If the plane keeps flying at altitude with a hole then asphyxiation is most likely.

If the plane is decending/falling then those initially unconscious from the de pressurisation may regain conciousness and be concious at the point of impact. But it is unlikely they will be fully concious or coherent, thankfully, but I am sure it does happen.

On impact with the ground it is the deceleration that normally gets you. Or if the impact is somehow softened then the next in line to get you is probably penetration of your body/head by a bit of the plane or luggage.

If still not that then you will probably be trapped with severe injuries and die from smoke, fire, punctured lungs etc. Or you might land on water and drown.

Going back up to altitude there is also the risk of you leaving the plane and in which case it again depends on altitude but you might initially pass out and then regain conciousness before hitting the ground or you might end up inside an engine or hitting the rear empennage.

Lots and lots of ways and sorry if it offends the more sensitive. Unfortunately I think one of the most likely in a large modern aircraft is you die from the rapid deceleration from hitting the ground, whether you are concious at the point I can’t say but there has been a fair amount of evidence of smoke inhalation suggesting people have still been breathing during the decent.

Basically just imagine a Final Desintaiton film and that is what is going on inside a plane that doesnt fully blow up as people are dying in different and pretty horrific ways.

(sorry again to those of a sensitive nature or have been personally affected by such things)

The cases of aircraft breaking up in mid are are extremely rare, but there is no physiological reason why if you suddenly found yourself outside of an aircraft at 40,000 feet you’d die instantly – it will take some time to die at that altitude and during that time you would fall to lower altitudes and higher pressures, so you’re ultimate demise would come when you hit the ground. I can’t think of many more horrific ways to go. Obviously if your aircraft breaks apart due to collision with another aircraft then some people might die instantly from the actual impact.

Most air accidents happen within a 6 mile radius of the departing or arriving airport, so happen during the take-off and landing phases. Not sure if this is comforting or not, but in these cases most people survive the actual crash only to die in the subsequent fire as they are trapped in their seats with multiple fractures to their limbs hampering their abiltiy to get out of the aircraft and away from the fire. The East Midlands crash back in the ’80’s gave valuable insight into this as unsusually the aircraft didn’t catch fire after it crashed on an embankment so the fuel ran away from the aircraft and didn’t catch light, but alot of the passengers were trapped in their seats with leg and arm fractures.

Lucky air travel is so unbelievably safe.

The cases of aircraft breaking up in mid are are extremely rare, but there is no physiological reason why if you suddenly found yourself outside of an aircraft at 40,000 feet you’d die instantly – it will take some time to die at that altitude and during that time you would fall to lower altitudes and higher pressures, so you’re ultimate demise would come when you hit the ground. I can’t think of many more horrific ways to go. Obviously if your aircraft breaks apart due to collision with another aircraft then some people might die instantly from the actual impact.

Most air accidents happen within a 6 mile radius of the departing or arriving airport, so happen during the take-off and landing phases. Not sure if this is comforting or not, but in these cases most people survive the actual crash only to die in the subsequent fire as they are trapped in their seats with multiple fractures to their limbs hampering their abiltiy to get out of the aircraft and away from the fire. The East Midlands crash back in the ’80’s gave valuable insight into this as unsusually the aircraft didn’t catch fire after it crashed on an embankment so the fuel ran away from the aircraft and didn’t catch light, but alot of the passengers were trapped in their seats with leg and arm fractures.

Lucky air travel is so unbelievably safe.

mrblobby – Member

a plane explodes

Just hoping the poor souls who didn’t make it to Egypt didn’t know much about it

Do you know something the press doesn’t? Still being reported as “missing”. No reports of an explosion.

The BBC are still reporting it lost, but AFP are claiming it’s crashed off Karpathos and there are reports of “flames in the sky”.

andyl has pretty much covered it..

If you are still alive on impact with the ground you’ll either die from internal injuries caused be rapid deceleration (blood vessels being torn from internal organs etc) or from crush injuries caused by the impact.
In this scenario the injuries + causes of death would be similar to a high speed vehicle crash (think coach departing a motorway at 60mph and hitting something hard)
If the plan catches fire you could also die from either smoke inhalation or from the fire itself.

The whole scenario (whatever way it happens) sounds horrific – the thought that people die almost instantly on de-pressurisation is sadly not true.

I think Egyptair is now off my list of preferred airlines.

For anyone really interested there’s a somewhat grim description of the Challenger disaster here that explains some of the issues
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster#Cause_and_time_of_death

For the relative peace of mind of friends and relatives “died instantly” is the normal reporting. The reality can be quite different as noted above

Well this thread was cheery.

Here’s a kitten

Kitten looks dead….

Reassurance of most deaths is that it was over quick, happened in their sleep or they’d lose consciousness first, they wouldn’t have known about it, etc. Even people dying at home from heart attack and such.

Reality is death is likely not a very nice experience for a lot of people, if not most. Though you can’t ask them after how it was. Or maybe you could… http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/05/03/dead-could-be-brought-back-to-life-in-groundbreaking-project/

Indeed, this is a sad thread. There was some suggestions that some of the dead at Lockerbie survived the explosion and fall, only to die on the ground from exposure.

I remember reading about this in the book Chinook! and there were a few snippets in the media too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/267865.stm

Grim reading… and sounds unlikely but plausable, there were a few reported cases of WW2 aircrew surviving falls from altitude without parachutes too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Alkemade

She survived the plane crash only to be killed by being run over twice by a fire truck.

your mum

I’m going back to the TMS thread – they’ve got cake!

Yeah… looked at the TMS thread. Couldn’t be bothered to work out what TMS was, so I gave up.

Cake might swing it though, eh.

In the Ukraine its usually the surface to air munition

In Egypt who knows?

lack of properly oxygenated blood to the brain.

You’d probably be killed by… you know…

I think you’d be incredibly lucky, if that’s the right word, to survive any impact with the ground!

Unless the part of the plane you are in has some aerodynamic lift, then you will accelerate downwards at 1g (9.81 m/s/s, or 22 mph per sec!) so after just 2 secs falling you’ll be at a speed that will probably kill you.

Terminal velocity will of course depend on the aerodynamic properties of the falling object, but in most cases, it will be in above 125mph (56m/s). Lets say you hit a soft earth field, and decelerate to zero in a relatively long distance (30cm say) that’s still ~20g, in reality, you’ll probably stop in less than 5cm which is 115g!

And if the plane is more intact, it’s lower drag means you can hit the ground going very fast indeed. CFIT accidents can see planes hit mountains at >300mph, and as a result pretty much nothing is left, as g forces can reach over 1000g. The actual moment of death in these cases will be so short as to be effectively un-noticable

She survived the plane crash only to be killed by being run over twice by a fire truck.

We landed on that runway a few days later. The plane still there.

500 mph into concrete block:

Plane entirely vapourises in 80ms (19m long plane, travelling at 225m/s) due to the energy dissipation ❗

(684MJ of energy (2tonne plane at 225m/s) released in 80ms is an average power of 8.5 GW !!!)

500 mph into concrete block:

That’ll buff out…