What actually kills you when a plane explodes?

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.

I can. Drowning in a submarine – submariners are all **** weirdos. At least you can light up a smoke on the way down and take in the view as opposed to clawing at some tin hull 300m below the surface.

I thought (might be urban myth), that in a deep submarine if it leaks the water comes in so fast into a sealed compartment that it compresses the air raising the temperature so you are incinerated rather than drown…..not totally pleasant but faster than drowning so I was told by a submariner friend!

Didn’t people survive in the Kursk for a few days?

Meh. Didn’t they hear guys clawing on the hull of the Russian sub until they ran out of air?

Anyway

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!

115G sounds a little low to me for that speed with that little stopping distance. Formula one cars have registered more than that when hitting barriers head on with plenty of crumple zone to slow them.

Come to think of it, helmets will deal with more G’s than that in low speed crashes.

But I’m guesstimating.

I read the wiki piece on Challenger’s crew cabin, the estimate was a 225g impact when it hit the ocean.

If a plane accident is anything like the most recent long haul flight I took, depressurisation and the resulting loss of consciousness, falling from 38,000 feet and possible incineration from burning fuel are almost an attractive prospect compared with eating reconstituted plastic and suffering someone’s unrestrained feral snotbrat who made a nine hour flight an absolute misery.

unrestrained feral snotbrat

Ravenous rugby players

Have we ruled out snake venom as a cause?

I was pondering this to some extent flying out to the Pyrenees yesterday.

I thought that if a wing or something fell off, so your doomed whatever, but you still have s minute before you hit the ground, I think I would be tempted to wait to a safe altitude and then open a door, and jump out. At least then I could enjoy a few seconds of free free fall before hitting the ground 🙂

My fear was bobbing around mid Atlantic and not knowing if I’d be brave enough to drown myself.
Looks like that won’t be an issue.

plane crashes are grim. I fly 50 odd times a year and it does make me think. My first thoughts are usually, why the hell are these people telling me what to do in an emergency? Lets be honest, if the plane is in trouble there really little hope, may as well put yer head between yer legs and kiss yer ass good aye. Its grim.

Let’s put it into context. People die in grim ways everyday taking risks that most people don’t even consider as being risks: crossing the road, cycling to work, driving a car. People die everyday in pretty gruesome ways on our roads. I feel far safer and less exposed on a plane than I do riding my bike on a busy road with 2 tons of car or 40 tons of Lorry passing within inches of me.

If you do something often enough you become desensitised to the risks, doesn’t mean to say you’re at any less risk, and you are exposing yourself to orders of magnitude greater risks everyday using our roads than getting on a plane.

Tom_W1987

115G sounds a little low to me for that speed with that little stopping distance. Formula one cars have registered more than that when hitting barriers head on with plenty of crumple zone to slow them.

Remember, the figure i quote is average deceleration. Ie, if you are going 125mph, and decelerate to zero over some distance, then the average deceleration is as quoted. However, generally deceleration isn’t linear, and there will be, at some point a peak decel that is much higher! F1 cars hitting barriers will have average deccels down in the low 10’s of g’s, but peaks can be over 200! (for a short enough time that means the total energy transfer is survivably low)

I thought that if a wing or something fell off, so your doomed whatever, but you still have s minute before you hit the ground, I think I would be tempted to wait to a safe altitude and then open a door, and jump out

Most people don’t realise the magnitude of the forces that occur when a plane, travelling at 500mph, departs from controlled (stable) flight. The dynamic pressure at that speed is enough to easily cause 5, 10 or even 20g of accel in any plane (x,y,z) so if a wing falls off, you ain’t just going to be standing up and walking to the door, you’ll be nailed to the ceiling by 20g incapable of doing anything!

Pretty sure I recall hearing, when Comet was experiencing explosive decompressions, the victims had friction burns, burst lungs and embolysms, so pretty sudden. There was a Jumbo that had a section of bodywork peel off, nine people got sucked out at altitude – no bodies were ever found but they found fragments of human remains in one of the engines, so that poor sod definitely didn’t know much about it.

My dad used to design bits of planes, back in the day when planes were largely built by hand. He recalls once being taken for a ride in a brand new Victor Bomber being taken on it’s very first flight, from a runway that wasn’t quite as long as the pilots would have liked.

There was also an incident involving a wooden stool, that had been sealed inside a fuel tank by over-zealous welders as it’s owner was slightly too late returning from a tea break.

I could go on and on.

When you step into an Airbus today, it’s built to a level of tolerance undreamed off back in the 60s. The very first prototype Victor crashed, killing it’s crew because the tail fell off mid-flight – this is how far our understanding of materials and fatigue has come along in sixty years. By far the best method of guaranteeing survival of passengers on an aircraft is simply not to crash.

Ive always assumed that if explosive decompression occurred at sufficient altitude, then wouldn’t you freeze to death?

pv=nrt and all that

maxtorque – Member
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.

I think the drag could potentially have quite a large effect though if you were still attached to a big enough chunk of aircraft with a low enough ballistic coefficient. some parts of aircraft seem to “float” down compared to other bits.

Look at the difference between someone falling from a building and going “splat” to people still being found relatively intact strapped into seats.

there is also the potential energy dissipation of any structure you are in.

Granted it’s highly unlikely but at a low enough altitude and attached to a big enough chunk of aircraft it is possible. Whether you would want to survive given the injuries you are still likely to sustain is debatable though.

I really fancied being air crash investigator when growing up. It’s one of those jobs were you don’t actually want work to be coming in and fortunately it’s not a hugely in demand job.

I do remember a case of a child and maybe an air hostess found alive after the Japanese Airlines 747 with the badly repaired pressure bulkhead (only one set of rivets through both pieces of aluminium instead of both after a tail strike repair) failed and the de pressurisation blew the top off the vertical fin and damaged the rubber. All the pilots could do was circle until they eventually ran out of altitude and hit a mountain. The passengers had time to write goodbye notes as it took a while to crash.

Then you have crashes like the Sioux City DC10 that almost, against all odds, resulted in no fatalities. Still a good number of people survived against the odds but a last second gouging of a wing into the airfield caused it to barrel roll.

Then you have crashes like the Sioux City DC10 that almost, against all odds, resulted in no fatalities. Still a good number of people survived against the odds but a last second gouging of a wing into the airfield caused it to barrel roll.

I recall watching a documentary about that incident. An off duty pilot in the cabin noticed they had a problem and went onto the flight deck to help out.

IIRC they put the conditions into a simulator and no-one was capable of flying the plane.

Just very unlucky right at the end, or lucky depending on your point of view.

He wasn’t just an “off duty pilot” he was actually the senior instructor / training pilot of the airway! He had more flight hours on type than anyone else by a massive margin!

Sometimes you get lucky, like the Hudson river crash, where the pilot is extremely gifted, extremely experienced, and also extremely lucky. Then sometimes you get the opposite (AF447……)

The seat from three rows in front of you, hitting your head, faster than the speed of sound. 😉

I recall watching a documentary about that incident.

…man, I loved that show. Which is odd as I have no interest in planes or crashes.

The seat from three rows in front of you, hitting your head, faster than the speed of sound.

Only if you were on a conveyor belt travelling faster than the plane as it hit the ground. 😉

I have just watched silent witness, so I should know the answer, but I fell asleep.

Sudden withdrawal of coffee/ beverages?

I would imagine the fight to get in the toilets would be the first thing!!

Its explained fully in the safety briefing at the start of each flight as you’d all know if any of you bothered to pay attention

“in the event of an emergency you’ll experience a plummeting sensation followed by a very sudden stop”

A very good friend was in the RAF and worked on “crash and smash” in the 80’s/90’s. The usual stuff was picking up bits of fighter pilot from Welsh hilsides until they got called out to Lockerbie. His section removed 120 bodies from the crash site, some from trees and the ground, most by just undoing the seat belts and popping people into body bags. It’s reckoned that people were alive in their seats after they hit the ground but didn’t survive for too long. He also attended the Kegworth crash a year or so later although the body count was much lower.

I hate flying with a passion.

Should we be continuing this discussion in light of the recent accident?

With no insult or criticism of any poster intended it just seems a little insensitive to carry the debate on as academically interesting as it might be.

unrestrained feral snotbrat

Thank you, noted for future use. 😀

With reference to the above, no. Its happened, its very doubtful that anyone with relatives on the flight play here and no one has been disrespectful.
Quite why I read this thread I do not know. I loath flying. I have nightmares about it in the year or so building up to a flight which thankfully is about once every 5 or 10 years. Its the fact that you are in someone else’s hands that scares me plus the fact that the results or a crash are almost certainly going to be fatal and not always quick. To a certain extent I feel the same way with some drivers and also on motorways. Pottering around the back roads feels so much safer and I am happy with my illusion that my actions can help prevent incidents.

We should discuss after recent events, plane safety, maintenance and security checks need improving.

R.I.P. and respect to those poor people who lost their lives recently and their heartbroken families and friends.

Funny no one seems to be getting the abuse I got when Prince died. Bad taste is obviously context specific, 1 pop star vs 66 ordinary people

I feel much safer flying than I do cycling around the roads.

Funny no one seems to be getting the abuse I got when Prince died. Bad taste is obviously context specific, 1 pop star vs 66 ordinary people

That’s because no one has said “meh, Egyptair are overrated. Never really liked their aircrew or clientele anyway; don’t know what all the fuss is about. I much prefer the clientele and aircrew of Airitalia” or some such nonsense.

…until they got called out to Lockerbie. His section removed 120 bodies from the crash site, some from trees and the ground, most by just undoing the seat belts and popping people into body bags. It’s reckoned that people were alive in their seats after they hit the ground but didn’t survive for too long.

There was an account published on Lockerbie, I think maybe from one of the police officers on duty at the time. They printed it in the Guardian a couple of years back. But something that stuck with me was that one of the passengers was found supposedly clutching the grass on the ground. So she was presumably still alive and conscious after impact.

I hate flying, but I’m strangely fascinated by air crashes. I think it’s because I’m always trying to rationalise the whole flying thing and constantly assessing the risk.

My parents read the Mirror back in the day and I was always haunted by the story they printed of someone in the cockpit having a pulse when found.

I got back from a week in Cyprus yesterday and have only had BBC World News and Russia Today to watch, an awful lot of time spent with very few hard facts.
Can’t say I was the slightest bit worried on the flight back though, totally out of my control.
Strangely I was in Cyprus last October when the Egyptair flight crashed in Sinai. 😕

As usual alot of speculation with little evidence as you say Dibbs. I’ve been involved on the outskirts of significant aircraft accident and incident investigations – not in the actual core investigation, but in the direct support of them, and I can tell you that there is a complete and utter lockdown of all information and it is rigorously controlled by the Airworthiness Authorities. I couldn’t even talk to my wife about the details of the investigation – or what I was exposed to at least. So by design no detailed information should be getting out and anything that is ‘leaked’ out should be assumed to be untrue, the investigators are cracking on doing their job with no distractions. Unfortunately it is the modern world where people seem to demand to know every detail immediately and seem to think it is their right to know every detail. The aircraft investigation process has been honed over 60 years and almost always gets to the bottom and direct root cause of the accident and it is then acted upon absolutely 100%. The result is a significant reduction in Accident and Incident rates despite an explosion (for want of a better word) of air travel with millions of people taking to the air every single day. And no government can overturn or interfere with this process. There is no other industry that has that level of authority and actually acts upon it. So you can be rest assured that in time the root cause of this accident will be found and acted upon so it cannot happen again.