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July 25, 2008
Would A Plastic Airbus Have Held Together?
Man, what a scary flight
Passengers on a London to Melbourne flight have described their terror after a faulty door "popped" in midair blowing a hole in the fuselage.Qantas flight QF30, with 300 passengers and crew on board, plunged 20,000ft after the faulty door caused an "explosive" depressurisation.
The Boeing 747 had just taken off from a stopover in Hong Kong when the incident happened. As the plane dropped from 30,000ft to 10,000ft, oxygen masks fell from the ceiling.
Debra Manchester, a passenger in first class, said there was a "huge bang" and a "massive rush of wind," with debris swirling around the cabin. Mrs Manchester, a housewife from Buckinghamshire, said there was an atmosphere of chaos as passengers struggled to put their oxygen masks on.
Give me a solid, well-built metal plane over some high-falutin' composite thingy any day.
Time for some heavy drinking.
Posted by Mr. Bingley at July 25, 2008 06:55 AM
Comments
Isn't that why the Rain Man said to always fly Quantas?
Posted by: tree hugging sister at July 25, 2008 09:32 AM
All this does is make me think of Myth Busters. A myth they busted just got...busted back? (the whole cabin depressurization isn't enough to blow a massive whole in an airframe bit)
Posted by: Ebola at July 25, 2008 10:15 AM
Just like the Rain Man, I'm betting that quite a few of these folks needed to make a trip to K-Mart for new bungies.
Yeah. Definitely.
Posted by: That 1 Guy at July 25, 2008 11:50 AM
I'm thinking I would need a whole case of Depends.
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at July 25, 2008 12:07 PM
Ah, Ebola my dear boy, the depressurization didn't cause the hole, the hole cause the depressurization. And Bing, get used to composites. Don't forget that plane in Hawaii where a chuck of the METAL fuselage ripped away exposing the cabin. Corrosion is a bad thing, as is metal fatigue.
Posted by: major dad at July 25, 2008 12:40 PM
Heck, it was most of the top of that 737, wasn't it? And one of the poor stews got sucked out.
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at July 25, 2008 12:49 PM
Ebola, that Myth Busters episode dealt with explosives in a pressurized cabin. I thought the final test was awesome, and demonstrated why shoe bombs are a big problem.
But, as your co-procreater pointed out, this event was due to structural problems. Two different things, although they can be equally catastrophic.
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at July 25, 2008 01:33 PM
Ebola has a co-procreator?
THS will not be amused
Posted by: Mr. Bingley at July 25, 2008 01:40 PM
Mmm, been a few years since I had cable. Could have sworn it was about piercing a fuselage (aka the bullet going through the window) was enough to cause a catastrophic structural failure and thereby blow out more of the fuselage a la the movies, and that it came out in their studies as incorrect.
Posted by: Ebola at July 25, 2008 05:31 PM
That was one of the tests, Ebola, and you're right, the bullet through the window was a bust. (heh!)
But they did set off 100 grams of plastique inside the pressurized fuselage, and half the upper cabin was blown away. In flight, that would have been catastrophic.
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at July 25, 2008 06:24 PM
THS might not be amused if parthenogenesis was involved, Mr. B.
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at July 25, 2008 06:30 PM