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DEBUNKED: 10 Airplane Myths That People Still Believe
Business Insider ^ | 09/24/13 | Alex Davies

Posted on 09/26/2013 12:03:19 PM PDT by oxcart

Flying can be a mysterious experience: Planes are incredibly complicated, even scary machines, and pilots and flight attendants don't tell you too much about what's going on.

So it makes sense that people believe all sorts of interesting "facts" about air travel.

The problem is, a lot of them aren't true.

From "you get drunk faster in the air" to "the air in planes is riddled with germs," here are 10 airplane myths that needed to be debunked.

1. Opening a plane door while in flight is a real safety risk.

It isn't. When the plane is at cruising altitude, it's pressurized. That pressure means that getting a door open would require superhuman strength.

To quote Patrick Smith, an airline pilot, blogger, and author of Cockpit Confidential: "You cannot – repeat, cannot – open the doors or emergency hatches of an airplane in flight. You can’t open them for the simple reason that cabin pressure won’t allow it."

So don't worry about the occasional passenger going nuts and everyone flying out of the plane as the result of an opened door, it isn't going to happen. Which leads us to the next myth...

2. A small hole in a plane will lead to everyone being sucked right out.

Patrick Smith notes that while bombs and large-scale structural failures can cause disastrous, rapid decompression, a small hole in a plane's fuselage is a different matter.

After a foot-long breach in an Alaska Airlines MD-80 plane led to an emergency descent in 2006, Smith wrote in his Salon column: "The breach was a small one, and once the cabin pressure had escaped, it could be reasonably assumed that the plane was going to stay in one solid piece and fly just fine. Which it did."

(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Travel
KEYWORDS: aerospace; airline; aviation; jet; myth; plane
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3. You get drunk faster at cruising altitude.

4. Planes dump human waste while in air.

5. You can get stuck on a plane toilet if you flush while sitting down.

6. Recirculated air in planes spreads disease.

7. Wearing your seat belt can hurt your chances of surviving a plane crash.

8. Pilots can control airflow to keep passengers sedated and save on fuel.

9. Oxygen masks are decoys, meant to keep passengers calm before a crash.

10. You have no chance of surviving a plane crash.

1 posted on 09/26/2013 12:03:19 PM PDT by oxcart
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To: oxcart

11. Flying is safer than driving


2 posted on 09/26/2013 12:05:27 PM PDT by qam1 (There's been a huge party. All plates and the bottles are empty, all that's left is the bill to pay)
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To: oxcart
It isn't. When the plane is at cruising altitude, it's pressurized. That pressure means that getting a door open would require superhuman strength.

While that might be true, it's a sorry,sorry explanation.

The pressure is on the INSIDE, pushing OUT. It's not a far stretch to think that the pressure would HELP you open the door, not hinder you.

To explain it by saying that "it's pressurized" shows a complete lack of understanding of the problem.

3 posted on 09/26/2013 12:07:17 PM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: qam1

12. An airplane hit the pentagon.


4 posted on 09/26/2013 12:07:17 PM PDT by MNDude
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To: oxcart

12. Yelling ‘Allahu Akbar!’ will make the plane crash............


5 posted on 09/26/2013 12:07:58 PM PDT by Red Badger (It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong. .....Voltaire)
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To: oxcart; a fool in paradise

12. Objects heavier than air can’t fly.


6 posted on 09/26/2013 12:08:23 PM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Izzy Dunne

Do the doors open ‘IN’ or ‘OUT’?.....


7 posted on 09/26/2013 12:09:02 PM PDT by Red Badger (It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong. .....Voltaire)
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To: oxcart

“9. Oxygen masks are decoys, meant to keep passengers calm before a crash.

ROFLMAO!!! I LOVE that one!


8 posted on 09/26/2013 12:10:05 PM PDT by CodeToad (Liberals are bloodsucking ticks. We need to light the matchstick to burn them off. -786 +969)
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To: qam1
Flying is FUN !

Especially take-offs, and rough landings.

LOVE those in air "drops" (don't know what you call them ... but your gizzard slides up into your brain)

9 posted on 09/26/2013 12:10:38 PM PDT by knarf (I say things that are true ... I have no proof ... but they're true)
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To: oxcart
3. You get drunk faster at cruising altitude.

#3 is true, but only because the stews can bring the drinks faster.

/johnny

10 posted on 09/26/2013 12:10:58 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: Red Badger
First in, then out. They are complicated little gadgets.

/johnny

11 posted on 09/26/2013 12:11:45 PM PDT by JRandomFreeper (Gone Galt)
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To: EveningStar

(((Ping)))


12 posted on 09/26/2013 12:11:51 PM PDT by oxcart (Journalism [sic])
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To: Izzy Dunne

Airplane doors are designed such that they have to be pulled inwards (into the cabin), then rotated, and then pushed out the hatch.

The article is correct.


13 posted on 09/26/2013 12:12:11 PM PDT by kidd (No blood for ego)
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To: Red Badger

14- don’t eat the fish. Have the lasagna.


14 posted on 09/26/2013 12:12:13 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Make today a great day. Insult a liberal.)
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To: oxcart
10. You have no chance of surviving a plane crash.

After the crash landing of Asiana Flight 214, it seemed incredible that 304 of 307 people on board survived. But that's in line with numbers from the National Transportation Safety Board, which show that 95% of passengers involved in accidents on US carriers between 1983 and 2000 survived.

A little misleading. Most of these are botched LANDINGS OR TAKEOFFS, where the plane is still relatively close to the ground. A failure from cruising altitude or with several hundred feet of altitude is almost impossible to survive, even over water.

15 posted on 09/26/2013 12:12:35 PM PDT by fwdude ( You cannot compromise with that which you must defeat.)
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To: CodeToad
I don't know about that...It got Dennis Hopper kind of hopped up.


16 posted on 09/26/2013 12:12:48 PM PDT by Carpe Cerevisi
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To: kidd
Airplane doors are designed such that they have to be pulled inwards (into the cabin), then rotated, and then pushed out the hatch.

So why wouldn't a writer, trying to explain why it won't happen, point that out?

17 posted on 09/26/2013 12:13:52 PM PDT by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: Izzy Dunne
It's not a far stretch to think that the pressure would HELP you open the door, not hinder you.

Assuming you don't notice that airplane doors are designed to open inward then rotate to the outside. You would have to overcome the pressure to open the door inward before you could push it to the outside.

18 posted on 09/26/2013 12:14:14 PM PDT by 6ppc (It's torch and pitchfork time)
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To: EQAndyBuzz
14- don’t eat the fish. Have the lasagna.

ROTFL!

19 posted on 09/26/2013 12:14:34 PM PDT by Alex Murphy (Just a common, ordinary, simple savior of America's destiny.)
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To: oxcart
I have it on good authority that #4 is not a myth.


20 posted on 09/26/2013 12:14:40 PM PDT by Defiant (A rainbow curtain has descended upon the west, from Munich to San Francisco.)
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