PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - What do you think of a graphic description of the effects of rapid decompression?
Old 6th October 2000 | 17:00
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Mycroft
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Apart from what has alraedy been said, that explosive decompression is extremely rare, the gradual reduction in cabin pressure being the problem with the Lear jet, ther is also the fact that it was flying 1t 50,000 ft+, where air pressure is only at 12% of sea level pressure, whereas an airliner flies around 35,000 feet, at 23%. Although this sound low, it would be no problem at all to PAX, as people have even climbed Everest (29,000 ft; 30% sea level air pressure) without oxygen and msot a/c are prssurised at 12,000 ft (60%). In fact as air only contains around 21% oxygen, if you had the masks on you would actually be getting more oxygen than sitting on the ground. I do not believe that any commercial airliner has ever crashed, or passenger died due gradual cabin pressure loss, and I am even aware of 2 explosive (ie sudden) decompression incidents where the a/c survived