[hattend]

small technical quibble: It isn't the air let out by a small hole that causes the problem. It is the pressurized air NOT let out pushing against a skin that has been compromised by that small hole that might pose the catastrophic hazard.

Don'cha wish NASA (or somebody) would take up an unmanned, instrumented 737 and shoot the aircraft skin with a .45 caliber pistol at 35,000' just so we could put this argument to rest one way or the other?

Just take it out over a military bombing range and keep firing until the plane is brought down/depressurized and then tell us how many holes are in the fuselage.

It'll never happen because the public might gain some real understanding of what it takes to bring down/depressurize an airliner.

[Dead Corpse]

How about that aircraft on its way to Hawaii and lost the entire top half of fuselage over the first class section? Was still able to land and the only casualty was the FA that was standing up in that section when the skin came off.

Of course, that wasn't cause by a firearm.

[demosthenes the elder]

well, Hell - they deliberately crashed a jetliner to test a fire-retardant fuel additive at least once upon a time, so this test you propose is at least *technically* feasable, and yes, I would like to see it done.