Decompression
Well, I have pointed at several examples of subsonic pressurized airplanes undergoing rather rapid decompression without immediately breaking up in flight. Some of the planes (a 737 and a 747) eventually managed to perform descent and land.
15 000 fpm from FL600 to FL500 is 40 seconds, correct? And 12 000 fpm is 50 seconds. FL500 to FL400 was a deceleration maneuver, slower. So, you get 1,5 to 2 minutes before the plane is below FL400. Or more?
250 feet per second or 75 metres per second descent cannot itself be achieved at once - if the wing is completely unloaded, it takes 8 seconds of free fall. Plus, before the descent is even initiated, the crew must put on their own masks.
Are a few seconds of useful consciousness at 60 000 feet cabin/cockpit altitude enough to put on pressurized oxygen?
If the crew could put on their masks then so could the passengers. The difference being the passenger masks had unpressurized oxygen. This is not enough to fly a plane and make sensitive decisions at FL600. But would the passengers who put on their masks have stayed conscious a few seconds longer than those who did not?
Of course assuming they had masks and the PSU-s were not blown away, as they were in a famous 737.
Also, if the plane reached more breathable air at FL 400, or FL300 or FL200 a few minutes later, were the passengers supposed to wake up from unconsciousness, or be already dead and stay that way?