PatriciaG
Interesting item. Thinking human factors, I'm also interested in whether people who are in a broken & tumbling aircraft would, for some reason based on primal instinct, unlatch their safety belt. I know people who jump from great heights and start to tumble have a natural overpowering urge to reach out for something to stabilize them. To unlatch their safety belt would position them to be more effected by air and water currents.
Maybe all people, falling over land or sea get stripped by the air pressure or later by the ocean.
Harry Mann referred to analysis of the Comet breakups where they concluded wave action was responsible for (at least some)clothing removal. I never would've considered that before but thinking of how my water-saturated-loostened-weighted clothing behaved when I swam with clothes on, it sure clicks with me.
As to whether clothes could be removed by decompression, my personal experience with only 'rapid' decompression in an altitude chamber says no-way. As for explosive decompression and airframe breakup you MUST refer to other accidents (at altitude over dry land) where that would have been the dominate possibility and what the outcome was.
We do have a case of rapid-or-explosive decompression of a B737 near Hawaii where a flight attendent was pulled from the cabin. I saw the photos of passengers after landing and saw NO EVIDENCE or remarks of clothing removal.