Ice on the inside of an emergency exit

[tom775257]

Hello all.
I was on a 757 sitting next to an emergency exit a while back. During the flight I felt really cold (had to put on 3 layers by the end of the flight), the door was covered in ice on the inside after an hour or so into the flight, and ice was forming on my clothing that was touching the door. The question is what could have caused this – assuming this is not normal!
Cheers,
Tom.

[russelldav]

the temperature outside the aircraft at altitude is well below freezing, causing the moisture in the air to freeze. i'd imagine there was a fault with a seal in the door that meant it was not insulating as it should have been and effectively conducting the cold temperature from outside through the airframe which is why it had ice on it.

did you alert a member of the crew to the door?

[tom775257]

Bizarrely I didn’t really think about it at the time and just assumed emergency exits might not be as well insulated as the rest of the fuselage. I was just pleased with the leg-room (6’4” on a Monarch charter…ughhh). I didn’t think it was necessary to inform the crew at the time.
If there was a fault in a seal, wouldn’t that lead to loss of (warm) cabin air around the seal to the outside, warming up the area local to the leak?
Thanks,
Tom.

[newswatcher]

Wow, leg-room 6ft 4in on Monarch! And all this time I've been accepting c 2ft 6in on other carriers! :p :D :p

[tom775257]

hehehe...you know what I mean:ok:

[ft]

I recently read (on here?) about an aircraft which was found to have micro-cracks in the fuselage. Enough of the insulation had been sucked (or rather blown) out the hairline cracks to have the pax complaining about the cold in that section of the aircraft and I think that was even how they discovered it.

Very much on hearsay - if someone claims to know the real details please correct or fill in.

Cheers,
Fred

[Basil]

The Outside Air Temperature (OAT) can be between -50C & -70C. At jet cruise speeds there's a rise of about 30C so the temperature at some parts of the aircraft skin will be -20C to -50C - still pretty cold.
At the doors the aircraft skin turns in to meet the floor forming a continuous heat conductor from the cabin at +22C to THE OUTSIDE at -50C.
Some aeroplanes have electrically heated underfloor mats in the door area to combat this problem for passenger comfort - I guess yours didn't.
Problems sometimes occur with ice forming on the inside of the uninsulated skin which melts on descent and drips all over us :*