What would happen if someone opened the cabin door of a jetliner at 35000 ft?

Question

Ok i've always wondered this... I've heard that rapid decompression would be a result of this.. but what does that mean? What would the passengers experience? What would the atmosphere in the cabin be like from their view? And would the pilot be able to save the plane at all?

Answer 1

You cannot open the cabin door due to the high pressure pushing the door closed from the inside unless you are superman.

In case you are able to open it, everyone will be sucked out of the plane. The plane will be doomed

Answer 2

It wouldn't be pleasant, but it's very unlikely to happen. Decompression would indeed result because the pressure inside is much greater than the pressure outside. That higher pressure would make it very difficult to open the door, however, because airliner doors open in, not out. If a door did manage to open, the rush of air would push out anything that wasn't nailed down or otherwise secured, including people who weren't strapped in or couldn't hold on to anything. After a few seconds, the pressure would equalize -- that's the good news. The bad news is that it would be very cold. I'm guessing the pilot would be able to control the plane.

Answer 3

It would be darn near impossible to open a door when the aircraft is pressurized, so nothing would happen at altitude.

I don't have the exact numbers for airliners, but the doors are usually just over 6 feet tall and about 3 feet wide... or approximately 72 inches by 36 inches, making the door area about 2,600 square inches.

The pressure differential is around 8 pounds per square inch between the inside and outside of the plane.

Airplane doors close in such a way that they have to move inward to open.  When the airplane is pressurized to 8 psi times 2,600 square inches, you would have to overcome close to 21,000 pounds to force the door open.  It's not happening.

Answer 4

You could not do it because of the pressure differential and the way the door is designed. If an explosive decompression took place, any unrestrained items could be sucked out until there was no difference in pressure. The pilot would be able to control and land the aircraft, unless it suffered sufficient damage to cause it to crash.

Answer 5

Opening the door would be very difficult with the cabin pressurized.

Rapic "decompression"?  No.

Rapid "depressurization"?  Yes.

The cabin pressure would rapidly become the same as the low pressure at that altitude.

The passengers would experience cold air, strong wind, loud noise, and some ear pain.

The atmosphere in the cabin would experience rapid condensation--fogging.

The pilot would be quite able to save the plane.

Answer 6

There was a case where the plane was decompressed because the roof was torn clean off. When it LANDED it looked like a 737 Convertible. Only small things were ejected out of the plane no passangers though.

Answer 7

I have seen films of rapid decompression.  They have facilities where they train military pilots (and maybe airline pilots too) where they put th em in a chamber and do sudden decompression.

First there is a strong wind that blows stuff out the door as all the air rushes out.  It wouldn't blow -everything- out of the plane, but anything that wasn't tied down might go.  A few years ago there was an incident in Hawaii where a stewardess got sucked out.  All the passengers were belted in their seats because the plane was on landing approach, but the stewardess was walking up and down the aisle so she got sucked out.  If you opened the door (assuming you could!) you would probably be the first thing sucked out.

Also the air inside the cabin suddenly turns milky white. The low air pressure can't support as much water vapor so the water comes out as fog.  In the film I saw, this happened immediately, faster than you could see it.  That would be scary.

Then it's a matter of oxygen.  The plane has those masks that fall from the ceiling. You have maybe 30-seconds or 1 minute to put them on.  This would be really hard at 35,000 feet because the rapid decompression would also suck the air out of your lungs!  You can imagine this would be disorienting, suddenly having the air sucked out of you and the air turning white and nearly opaque.  It would also be freezing cold!

The pilot should still be able to fly the plane if there was no other damage, but I'm guessing anything that caused the decompression might also damage control surfaces, cut hydraulic lines, etc. etc.  Then you'd be in trouble.

Answer 8

ok

it is phyicly open a cabin door at 35000ft due the the basic design of the door.

it is built so that it is slightly bigger than it's frame and when the pressure in the cabin makes 1000 times havier than it really is. the only way to open that door in mid-flight would be an explosive decomression.

the pessenger would not be able to breath. the pilot would be able to save the aircraft if he got it to below 10000ft so that he and the passengers could breath. anything that isnt bolted down would be sucked out the aircraft. it would be very windy and very very noisey.

as for the atmosphere in the cabin all the pressurized oxygen would be sucked out people would definetly scream and controls on the aircraft would be much harder to use and would most likly experience frequent turbulence.

hope this helps.

Answer 9

THe gas masks will come down and their would be a massive sucking motion.  The pilots will do a dive to 10,000 feet and will be there in one minute or less.  Then at 10,000 feet the pressures will be equalized.

Answer 10

Similar to what the previous response said, it would be nearly impossible.   Almost all doors on modern aircraft are known as "plug doors", where the door is actually bigger than the frame it rests in.  When the door is locked into the closed position, the pressure inside the cabin forces the door into its frame.

There have been instances where doors have come open in flight (never at 35000 ft. like you asked, but lower) and the results have been less than catastrophic. A Learjet lost a door on takeoff from Denver recently, and was able to return and make an emergency landing, but aside from the increased wind noise, there weren't any dramatic effects on flight characteristics.   On a larger scale, on South African Airways flight 295 in 1987, there was an onboard fire, and in an attempt to free the cabin of smoke, the crew opened a pair of doors at 14,000 feet.   The only thing sucked from the cabin in that instance was the smoke.

Answer 11

to answer your question (if one can ever manage to open the door), the pressurization differential would result in everything being sucked out.  one more reason to wear a seatbelt while seated on a plane.  the pilot can nose dive the plane and in a minute could bring the plane down to a lower altitude where the pressure will be more stable.  besides freezing ur nuts off and the lack of oxygen and a feeling of being pulled into the beyond, u may have a thrill of ur life!!

Answer 12

Basically what everyone else said. There would definitely be a rapid decompression. Think of the pressurized cabin as a can of coke just shaken. You know what happens.

Answer 13

It would get really cold, but thats about it. Skydive perris uses a DC9 for some jumps. The  back door/air stair is removed, so it gets pretty cold, but it doesn't take that long to get up. They take you up to 27,000 feet, you disconnect your oxygen, and run out the back door. of course, that is a rarity, and is often used for special events, but it's still cool none the less. Still has the original passenger seats and everything

Answer 14

nick@night is absolutely correct.

There was a case a while back of a psychotic man aboard an airliner who threatened to open the cabin door mid-flight thereby killing everyone on board. He was unable to open the door and subsequently beaten to death by a mob of panicked  passengers.