What would happen if you opened a plane's emergency door mid-flight

boing
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This makes for an interesing read:

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Jet Blue boards on both ends at LGB. (Long Beach, Ca.) or at least they used to. I haven’t been there in about 5 years. It is the way all airplanes should be boarded. It’s so much nicer that way.

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Human beans

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Thank you. This takes a HUGE load off my mind. I’ll be able to fly with a bit more peace of mind now. No longer feeling compelled to stare intently at the door, fidgeting in my seat, and repeatedly mumbling “…I wonder what would happen…I wonder…I wonder” under my breath while sweating profusely.

Now I know and I can relax and look out the window. At the torrent of icy cold, unbreathable air rushing by, with only a thin, fragile, inconsequential pane of glass between me and a great void…I wonder…

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I know how you feel.

Hey, ever wonder what would happen if you stuck a fork in an electrical socket?

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Obligatory!!!

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Fun fact: Albany International has one of those jetways. I’ve flown through there a few times, and have gotten to use it. Weird to board from the rear of the plane.

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Say what you like about the criminality of his actions, he was a hell of a man. Made history by being the only known “successful” air hijacker, single-handedly forced new FAA regulations and re-engineering of a line of major aircraft, and - probably - was a Godsend to hungry bears and ants somewhere up in the mountains. He did more than most do in a lifetime.

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Is that another of those pesky left-wing growth-limiting regulations that President Bloviating Fartbag wants to eliminate?

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I really really really hope the FAA has better immunity from that kind of thing.

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As others have pointed out, doors that open outward must have complicated fail safe locks to secure them. The two accidents with the DC-10 is what happens when you don’t have that:

In these cases it was the cargo door rather than a passenger door or emergency exit.

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just because it’s impossible doesn’t mean you should try

Ooh, a challenge!

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Do people do HALO jumps for fun? Genuine question, I have no idea; I generally associate the acronym with the military, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there are civilian skydivers throwing themselves out of high-altitude planes for certain values of “fun”.

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Think of it as over 5 tonnes per square metre, or 5 tons per square yard. Even two pounds per sq.in. would be well over a tonne per square metre, so around two tonnes for the whole door.

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I had a professor who did that. He grew up to be an electrician, then a CS teacher.

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Blown, not sucked. Blown.

Yes, I know it’s the fault of the original article, but still.

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As a kid I plugged in a kettle lead and put two pieces of wire in the bottom two holes. (In the UK we have Earth wires in case of stupidity…)

FYI it makes a spark and a loud bang and you have to explain to your parents what the burning smell is.

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At many airports they roll stairs up to the aircraft doors and you board from the tarmac. That works from both ends with no trouble at all. And it happens even at very large airports for those smaller and less significant flights where they bus you out to a plane that waits for you somewhere out in the boonies, because there are none of those fancy terminal/jetway parking spaces left.

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You bet they do. For example, on 14 October 2012, civilian Felix Baumgartner jumped from a balloon at nearly 39 km above ground and landed safely nine minutes later.
Military HALO jumpers don’t go anywhere near that high (because there would be no point).

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