| USA: Eastern | Latitude | Longitude | Heading | Direction | KTS | MPH | feet | Rate | Location/Type |
| 06:59PM | 33.72 | -114.37 | 269° | West | 412 | 474 | 36,000 | -5,520 | Los Angeles Center |
| 07:00PM | 33.72 | -114.51 | 261° | West | 428 | 493 | 19,700 | -10,740 | Los Angeles Center |
| 07:01PM | 33.71 | -114.65 | 260° | West | 423 | 487 | 14,600 | -4,320 | Los Angeles Center |
And the -5K and -4K before and after it aren't a walk in the park either.
I wonder what the cockpit recorder sounds like. I would imagine he told the controllers he was going down fast.
Still took 3-4 minutes to get down to a breathable altitude. The pilot probably saved some lives.
For a loss-of-cabin-pressure accident, pilots are trained to descend to 10,000 feet (breathable air) as fast as possible.
These numbers suggest that the plane descended from 36,000 feet to 19,700 feet between 6:59 and 7:00 PM, or 16,300 feet in one minute.
In other words, if the data are actually correct, it looks as if the plane descended at an average rate of 16,300 feet/min = 271.7 feet/sec during this one minute period.
So, I don’t understand what the number under “rate” indicates. Maybe my math is bad. Or, maybe someone can clue me in.
Anyway, a 271.7 feet/sec descent can’t be a walk in the park. Because, according to the all-knowing Wikipedia, the terminal velocity of a skydiver is in the neighborhood of 122 mph (or, about 178 feet/sec).