opening cabin door in flight?

[419]

Air terror as man jumps at 23,000ft - AOL News

I was always lead to believe that once a cabin was pressurized, it would be impossible to open a cabin door.
Obviously this is not the case, or could this have been possible due to a fault somewhere?

[Contacttower]

Don't know the exact answer but it may be something to do with the King Air being very small compared to say an airliner and therefore having quite a small quantity of air inside it. Also the King Air does not have as powerful a pressurisation system as a larger aircraft and at 23,000ft the cabin altitude may have actually been quite high and therefore not as large a differential as on a larger aircraft.

[Final 3 Greens]

I don't know either, but maybe the King Air door is not of the 'plug type' like an airliners and is held by only by a mechanism, not also by air pressure.

[PaperTiger]

The door is not a plug type, it simply opens outwards without power assist.

[Contacttower]

In which case it would be easy to open in flight.

[419]

Thanks for that.

Question answered.

[smith]

I do it all the time, gets a bit breezy and a bit difficult to breathe, other than that no real problems