Posted on 10/29/2010 10:22:52 AM PDT by Kartographer
A 1-foot-by-2-foot hole tore open in the fuselage of a commercial airliner that suddenly lost cabin pressure shortly after taking off from Miami, authorities said.
A man aboard American Airlines Flight 1640 said passengers panicked when the Boston-bound flight lost cabin pressure Tuesday night.
"It was pretty chaotic and confusing. It just was kind of surreal. We kind of looked at each other when the masks came from the ceiling and thought this is it," said Edward Croce, 34, of Braintree, Mass.
Croce tried to send a goodbye text message to his son back home, but his hands were shaking uncontrollably.
The crew declared an emergency, and the pilot returned the plane safely to Miami. The Boeing 757 carried 154 passengers and six crew members.
"We were shaken up and everyone was in shock," Croce said, who said the airline didn't provide medical attention for passengers once they were on the ground.
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said Friday that an inspection of the plane revealed a hole in the upper part of the fuselage near a cabin door toward the front of the plane.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Or better yet:
Elim Garak: I believe in coincidences, coincidences happen every day. But I don't trust coincidences. From: Deep Space Nine
Without any indication of an explosion, it sounds like metal fatigue.
Croce tried to send a goodbye text message to his son back home, but his hands were shaking uncontrollably.
____________________________________________________
Now that is pathetic.
“OMG plane going down”
Might be a good idea to write your farewell message prior to getting on the plane and have it ready to go just in case. I'm with this guy...my hands would be shaking so badly I'd be lucky to find my cell phone!
A hole? It is more like an RV sliding window!
Other reports of this incident says passengers did hear an explosian.
Sounds like he probably wet the phone as well. ;-)
There is an A-hole in Air Force One.
A text message?
I’d want to TALK!...............
A rapid decompression or an explosive decompression can sound like an explosion, but I agree with a previous post: probably metal fatigue.
Not so pathetic as your assumed content is probably wildly inaccurate. If I were on a plane going down and unable to speak due to wearing an oxygen mask, I might still try to queue up a text message to my wife and children that said:
“I’m only thinking about how much I love you.”
They heard/felt a loud noise, don’t know about explosion.
To most passengers a shell failure at speed would sound and feel like the end of the world. If it was indeed an explosion forensics will easily pick it up.
Not the first
The examination by the agencies may lead to aircraft inspections, a step advocated by Boeing in September 2009 after an 18-by-12-inch hole opened on a Southwest Airlines Co. 737 plane and forced an emergency landing two months earlier.
Related
Boeing Co (BA.N) and the FAA are stepping up scrutiny of certain Boeing 757 aircraft after a two-foot hole opened earlier this week in the fuselage of an American Airlines jet cruising at 31,000 feet, resulting in rapid cabin decompression. Having a blowout at 31000 ft will get your atention. I note no passengers were sucked out into the void per ‘normal’ Hollywood meme.
I thought the whine about “no medical attention offered’ was pretty LOL.
I think the offer of new drawers would have been more in line.....
Talking was likely impractical due to:
a) Wearing an oxygen mask and...
b) All the idiots around you screaming
LOL LOL
In such a situation, can’t they just descend to a lower altitude? The plane should still fly and land OK.
bolobaby’s covered that + you’ve probably seen it already, but it’s worth restating:
Shell failure (at a high enough height) leads to an environment where you can’t breath without a mask and you can’t make yourself heard.
Yes on the screaming, but wind noise alone would make a phone impractical.
If they were at bingo fuel they would certainly carry onto destination. A Japanese or Korean plane famously landed with half the fuselage open to the elements - much worse than this plane sounds.
But you'd want to turn back if you possibly could. The passengers would thank you!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.