Originally Posted by
physicus
What makes you think the altimetry system in an airliner category airplane would be affected in any way by an explosive decompression? All static and dynamic pressure ports are on the outside of the aircraft, hopefully...
Explosive decompression means a shock wave propagating out from the decompression spot. It only takes about 0.5 psi of overpressure to make the barometric altimeter read 28000' momentarily instead of 31000'.
Or it could be something totally unrelated, of course.
P.S. Found
this paper, doing numerical simulation of the blast wave from explosive decompression of an aircraft. It calculates maximum overpressure of 1.15 kPa (0.17 psi) at the distance of 50 m directly forward from the point of decompression, using TWA 800 parameters (altitude 15000', Mach 0.50). Here we have higher speed and nearly double the pressure differential, so 0.5 psi is plausible.
OTOH, if this were a Buk type surface-to-air missile, we have
this simulation and it estimates peak overpressure on the order of 100 kPa / 15 psi at the distance of 10 m from the point of detonation, and I'm not sure if the pitot-static system would even continue to function after a such an impact.