If the windshield of a commercial airliner fails, would the entire cabin lose pressure, or just the cockpit?

Question

I saw the report on CNN today, and thought it was pretty scary.

Answer 1

The entire aircraft.  The door isn't sealed.

Answer 2

pressurization in the aircraft is a sytem controlles the pressure in side the aircraft and as a part of the airconditioning system the cabin alt is the same as the cockpit alt the diffrenc is in the ac system where u can controll the cockpit temp up to certain limimt seperatly

and as the cockpit is not a 100 percent sealed it the cabin will loose the pressure as well as the cockpit .

Answer 3

The cockpit tiny crack will relase air causing the whole plane to be pushed back by wind, tiny cracks are okay but over time they will grow due to the pressure of the air.

P.S Short Term: The entire plane will lose pressure

Answer 4

If you watch the discovery channel there was a "Mayday" episode where part of the cockpit windsheild came completely out due to a bad design, and the wrong-sized screws being used. The captain was actually sucked out the windsheild, and the flight crew had to hold onto his legs while the first officer landed the plane. Although he was actually outside the plane, the combination of wind pressing him against the plane, and people hanging on to his legs saved him, and there were no fatalities.

In short, yes if pressure drops in the cockpit the whole plane will feel it.

Answer 5

Usually the entire window does not fail so it does not lose pressure but if it did then the entire air craft would lose pressure. This would cause the pilots to do an emergency descent to approx 10,000 feet or below.  This is a safe altitude to fly an unpressurized plane.

Answer 6

The entire plane.

Answer 7

i think it depends on the fail itself. I don't a small crack would do much, a large one might be a little problematic.

Answer 8

the entire cabin. but its not going to be explosive like the movies make it out to be

Answer 9

The door to the flight deck is not airtight, so the entire cabin would lose pressure if the failure were bad enough to actually breach the pressure hull.

Just thinking about it, unless the great blacksmith in the sky dropped his anvil and hit you square in the windshield, the chances of one breaking into pieces is so slight as not to be worried about.

Windshields have been known to de-laminate in flight, which is pretty horrible, but in the absence of hostile gunfire or falling anvils, I just can't imagine one bursting.

Answer 10

I once saw an episode of Nat Geo investigates in which the front shield cracked into bits. The entire aircraft was in a mess. Stuff was flying from here to there.

So......the answer is the entire airplane

Answer 11

It depends on which glass fails.  

The windshield consists of 3 panes: inner, middle, and outer.

The outer pane is not structural.  If damaged, it exhibits a large cracking pattern with good vision capability.  It does NOT affect pressurization.  The Boeing minimum equipment list (MEL) allows dispatch with a cracked outer windshield provided certain criteria are met.

The inner and middle panes exhibit an intense cracking which obscures vision.  Failure of these  2 panels by themselves would not affect pressurization either.  But these are structural components of the fuselage and failure of these panes causes more concern.  The MEL does NOT allow dispatch with either of these windows cracked or damaged.

All three would have to fail to affect cabin pressurization.  The outflow valve may not or may not be sufficient to compensate for the loss of pressurization should a complete loss of a cockpit window occur.  The cockpit cabin door could actually help maintain pressurization throughout the airplane so long as it remains closed.

Answer 12

i recently saw a BBC series about the air crashes, and there was cited one of the windshield failures, taht resulted in sucking the captain out of the aircraft and decompressing the entire hull.