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To: pabianice

It would be nice if there was a way, once the plane was not moving, to pop the windows open if there is a fire inside the cabin.

That would help prevent suffocation deaths.

Even a small fire could kill a lot of people in a plane by smoke inhalation, if the fire took out the ventilation.

Of course, the chance of that is very low compared to the risk of having windows that could be forced open, so trade-offs are made. That doesn’t mean we can’t say that it would be nice if you could.

We do have removable windows in the center of the craft, to help people escape onto the wing. SO it’s not a stupid idea. And yes, if someone manages to open one of those in flight, or to open the doors, we would have decompression.


11 posted on 09/25/2012 9:32:43 AM PDT by CharlesWayneCT
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To: CharlesWayneCT
We do have removable windows in the center of the craft, to help people escape onto the wing. SO it’s not a stupid idea. And yes, if someone manages to open one of those in flight, or to open the doors, we would have decompression.

But those are built so that the air pressure difference is holding the door in place. The difference between the cabin pressure (around 5000 feet altitude equivalent) and the atmosphere at 40000 feet would be about 10 pounds per square inch. A typical emergency exit would have about 4 tons of pressure holding it in place. I'm not going to pop it open to get a little bit of a breeze.

36 posted on 09/25/2012 11:09:57 AM PDT by KarlInOhio ("Government is the only thing that we all belong to"=implicit repeal of the 13th amendment for all.)
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