UA 320 diverted to DEN after pax tries to open door
 

Sadly, this is not an unusual story these days, of the "wack job does something wacky" variety.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...a/14400900.htm


Quick action subdues man who tried to open jetliner door in air
Associated Press
DENVER - Passengers aboard a United Airlines flight had some help when they had to take matters into their own hands to prevent Jose Manuel Pelayo-Ortega from bringing their plane down.

Three Secret Service agents headed west to join President Bush's entourage joined with passengers to subdue Pelayo-Ortega when he tried to open one of the doors on the Airbus A-320.

"Had he opened the door, we'd all be dead," passenger Donna Bell of Visalia, Calif., told the Sacramento Bee after the plane was searched and allowed to continue westward.

Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahensaid three agents between assignments help detain Pelayo-Ortega, who was taken off the plane after it made an emergency landing in Denver.

"That saved us," Ian Grossman of Chicago told the Bee. "You don't know what will happen if a guy like that is loose in the cabin."

The Bee reported that passenger Joe Pena, a senior airman at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., described the incident as like a bar fight. "I heard a bunch of commotion, and I heard somebody yell 'What are you doing' and 'Get down,' then I saw the guy put into a chokehold, put on his back and pinned down so he couldn't move," Pena said in Sacramento, after hugging his tearful wife, Candy.

While Pelayo-Ortega was being detained, two F-16 fighter jets from Buckley Air Force Base east of Denver scrambled to intercept the plane, which carried 138 passengers and six crew. Had the plane "been judged as a threat by the highest levels of our government, they could make the decision to have the plane shot down," said Lt. Commander Sean Kelly, a spokesman for NORAD, a U.S.-Canadian military command based outside Colorado Springs that monitors missiles, aircraft and space objects and warns of threats.

The policy was put in place after Sept. 11, 2001. President Bush would ultimately make the decision.

Authorities said Pelayo-Ortega - whose age and hometown were not immediately released - tried to open an door on the Airbus A-320 en route from Chicago to Sacramento, and then claimed to have a bomb forcing the emergency landing in Denver.

A "shoot-don't shoot" scenario didn't develop because the plane was following all FAA instructions. One of the last resorts would have included the fighter pilots either talking to or attempting to talk to the pilot of the airliner, which didn't happen Friday, Kelly said

The fighter jets out of Buckley Air Force Base east of Denver "followed to make sure nothing untoward was going to happen," Kelly said.

Since Sept. 11, fighters have been scrambled or if already airborne diverted 2,300 times, said Kelly. The Transportation Security Administration said it did not have numbers on how many flights have been diverted.

Pelayo-Ortega was in a Denver jail awaiting federal charges. FBI spokeswoman Monique Kelso said he will be charged on Monday. She did not return a call Saturday seeking details.

Kelso said authorities searched the aircraft for explosives and re-screened luggage as well as the passengers before they were allowed to re-board the plane, which left for its original destination at about 7:30 p.m.

Respect to the paper for immediately going to a highly technically-qualified source for reliable information.

6weeks ago the same thing happened in Australia. The full press article reads:

Mid-air scare: bid to open plane door
March 9, 2006 - 1:20PM

A woman who tried to open a cabin door on a Virgin Blue flight has been arrested in Sydney.

The 33-year-old woman from Gatton, west of Brisbane, was arrested after trying to open the cabin door during the Brisbane to Sydney flight last night, the Australian Federal Police said.

The woman was taken into custody after arriving in Sydney and charged with endangering the safety of an aircraft under the Crimes (Aviation) Act.

She has been bailed and will appear before the Downing Centre Court in Sydney on April 4.

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Far less dramatic down there!
No secret agents, bar flights, death plunges, fighter planes, & teary eyed nearly widowed wives. The journo even managed to get GWBs name in there twice!
It was no doubt bigger, better & in technicolour in the land of the brave :hmm:

At anything over 8,000 FT or so, is it even possible to open an aircraft plug-type door once the airframe is pressurised, I always thought there was at least 10 tons keeping it snug?

I believe there are some emergency exits that open either way, but the cabin doors require inward motion before going out. Impossible when pressurized at altitude. Even with just 1psi pressure differential (about 3000ft altitude difference between in and out) you'd be looking at about 4500lbs...

And yes, if we believed everything Donna Bell of Visalia Calif. tells, and the Sacramento Bee has the audacity to print, we'd surely all be dead.

Ai Chihuahua!

No it's not possible. What a load of sensationalist cr@p.:mad:

Can it be opened? Do the sums for yourself, eight pounds for each square inch of the door making sure it stays "plugged".

Had the same "event" on my command training. A total "non-event".

Some idiot tries to open a door so this matter is brought up... What a load of cr*p. Even to intercept it seems like a complete overreaction, let alone mention shooting it down. Are they deliberatly trying to scare people out of the sky?

Are the A320 doors really plugs?

Yes They are

Show me the person able to open a plug-door when a/c is pressurized!

THEN I'll relate to the issue...

Making an educated guess, on most aircraft the door handle and mechanism should break before it is exerting anywhere near enough force to unplug the door.

With manually operated doors the handle will fail before the door can be opened while any jet airliner is airborne and pressurized at normal pressure.

With electric operated doors the motor does not have enough power to open a pressurized door.

As far as I know all emergency exits are plug type on jet airliners.

From Chewy; "Are they deliberately trying to scare people out of the sky?"

Well, yes, actually. IMHO the more stories you can print like this that say 'thank goodness for the TSA and our Executive Branch led decision making cycle' the easier it is to convince Joe Public that something meaningful is being done about 'the threat' using his tax dollars. But it doesn't take much Emperors' New Clothes thinking to come up with an alternative answer though.

Hey - can we get some knowledgeable pilots online here?

Any modern a/c have plug-in doors, thus you cannot open them even if you're Superman. When the pressure differential is more than a few PSI, there is no way that a crazy passenger can open a door!

Please - Nitwits - stay off this site!!!

Nardi, who are you to judge who is knowlegeable and who is not? and what does it matter? It's a discussion board, not a lecture hall. Please stop having a go at people for posting.

Btw, judging by your profile you are not a highly experience pilot yourself. The majority of commercial pilots on here could call you a knowlegeless nitwit...

Door 3 (emergency exit) on a 757/767 is not a plug door but I was told it was "protected" by barometric bolts (?) or something similar.Hope it's true.

Matkat - "Yes they are" (plugs).
One would assume that anything as modern as the Airbus fleet would have plug doors. The reason I asked the question is that unlike Boeing and Douglas aircraft, where the door comes inside the fuselage and then closes into the door opening from the inside, the A320 door closes into the opening from the outside. So the "plug" is inserted from the outside rather than vice versa.
The Airbus door also has a complex system of latches (reminiscent of the Viscount) around the perimeter of the door opening that, combined with the above, has always led me to believe the door was not a true plug held in place by differential pressure.
Perhaps someone could clarify?

Here is a goto to a thread talking about Aircraft doors that may provide you with the information you seek.
http://www.airliners.net/discussions...ain/100075//6/

Many thanks Longtimer - an informative thread. My training never made it that clear.