Beyond the Black Box

People just don’t understand how survivable an airplane crash is. Sure a violent crash can kill everyone. Far more likely is an equipment failure or pilot error during the critical phases of take-off or landing at around 160 mph or less. (Around 400 mph or so the plane will fragment at impact.) Just like the article said: of the 27 DC-10 destroyed in crashes, 85% of the time an average of 90% of the passengers lived.

If I had more space in the New York Times article I would have further said (besides buy the book) the following.

Crashing at lower speeds is survivable. However it is also easy to puncture the sheet metal fuel tanks, ignite fuel and burn the plastic interior. In that case the flight attendants instructions are vital. 300 people do not need 300 different ideas about how to find the nearest exist especially at night with a little bit of smoke, fire and panic

Explosive Decompression

Illustrating the energy of compressed gas Aloha Flight 243 (April 1988) blew its top in a massive explosive decompression. The effect is identical to the fragmentation of a pin pricked cylindrical balloon. A little bit of scotch tape also illustrates how the fuselage ribbing is designed to prevent a rapid tearing fracture.

I found two examples of people being sucked out of windows. In 1973 an engine fragment knocked out a window. The nearby passenger was slowly sucked out in spite of having his seat belt on. Later it was determined it was slack by 8 inches.

In 1990 a British Airlines pilot was sucked out at 17,300 feet. The left wind screen had been replaced the night before with undersized bolts. He caught his feet in the control column. Flight attendants wrestled his feet out of the control column and held on to him for 20 minutes until they safely landed. The pilot lived to resume his flying career.

Although planes are struck by lightening on average one per plane per year, it is totally safe as shown by this amazing video.

After a botched landing this Air Bus 330 caught on fire in Toronto in August of 2005. Everyone evacuated safely in spite of 4 of 8 exists being blocked by fire or damage.

This FAA/NASA test crash occurred in 1984. The crash impact was very survivable. The maximum 15 g impact forces were relatively small compared to the estimated 25 g’s required to break a passenger’s backbone. The FAA estimated 19 of the 53 simulated passengers would have survived the fireball.