Originally Posted by
ciderman
Anyone remember the Payne Stewart tragedy in a Lear? Is this possible in a 777 flying 10000 feet lower?
Yes. All that changes is time of useful consciousness. A sedentary passenger can be comfortable at a cabin altitude of 12,500 feet. With a cabin altitude of 25,000 feet some will lose consciousness after a minute or so. Others will experience euphoria for a minute or so but be unable to do anything useful. If they have oxygen restored in a few minutes they will recover and have no memory of loss of consciousness. If oxygen is not restored then they will eventually die.
If the cabin altitude was 37k then we are talking seconds before loss of consciousness - say 30 seconds.