Mass. plane passenger tries to open emergency door

[Newsjock]

Source: Associated Press

Air travel authorities say a Delta passenger who tried to open an emergency door on a flight from Orlando, Fla., to Boston has been subdued by another passenger.

Boston Logan International Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella says it's unclear why the passenger tried to open the emergency door Tuesday night on the Airbus 320 flight out of Orlando International Airport.

... Delta crew members called authorities in Boston to report the disorderly passenger aboard Flight 1102.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/05/10/state/n191900D08.DTL&tsp=1

[virgogal]

1. Didn't this also happen a few days ago ? I could be wrong.

[Drale]

3. Yes it did

[Skip Intro]

2. Is that plane still in flight - this just happened?

That's the way the story reads.

There was another one of these incidents yesterday or the day before I believe, and I'm not talking about the man who tried to ram the cockpit door of another flight. I'll look for a link...

Wtf?

[Skip Intro]

5. Yeah, here's one from yesterday, same thing, guy tries to open emergency door in flight:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7555866.html

An unruly passenger forced a Continental pilot to divert his Chicago-bound flight from Houston to St. Louis on Sunday, after the passenger made an attempt to open an emergency exit door during the flight.

Twenty-minutes after Continental Airlines Flight 546 left Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, witnesses told authorities the 34-year-old passenger from Burbank, Ill., walked toward the front of the cabin, claiming he had to get off the plane.

There were loud screams on board as men throughout the cabin dashed toward the disturbance, said Sara Olkon, a former Chicago Tribune reporter who was on the flight.

"It was the sound of terror," she said.
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Again, wtf?

[FLPanhandle]

4. Picture of the guy

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. You can't get an airplane door open when the plane is pressurized

in flight. Still, people should be discouraged from trying.

[virgogal]

7. Man,that makes me feel better.

[TheMadMonk]

9. Open, open might not be possible.

However, from one of the Air Crash Investigation episodes (fire in a combined cargo/passenger plane) it does appear that on at least some models of planes, the doors can be at least "cracked" in an emergency to clear smoke or fumes.

There are also the one or two cases of individuals who have successfully deboarded commercial jetliners in flight to indicate that "You can't open the doors of a pressurised plane" is not universal.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. You can "crack" some doors (unlatch them)

but all that happens is that you unseal the door, allowing the pressure within the aircraft to remove smoke or fumes. The door will not actually open so it isn't unsafe. The instances where doors were opened in flight, e.g., D.B. Cooper, were situations where the aircraft was low enough (below about 10,000 feet) that the airplane was no longer pressurized enough to prevent the doors from opening. After the D.B. Cooper incident the FAA mandated that certain interior door controls for aft passenger doors in the B-727 and DC-9 series be removed so those doors couldn't be opened from the inside. Airplane overwing emergency doors are plug-type doors that are wider on the inside than on the outside and can't be opened while the airplane is pressurized.

[boppers]

12. So, I had a question about the pressure being greater on the inside...

...but you answered it with this post. :)

[Gregorian]

14. Just a rough calculation gives enormous forces. A 3x7 foot door

and a 1 psi pressure difference between the inside and outside of the plane would yield 2500 pounds of force pushing the door inward.

But then that doesn't mean much if there are mechanical means of operating the door. Or lots of other things.

[Devil_Fish]

15. Your right about enormous force, but wrong on differential pressure.

The Higher pressure is on the inside of the plane pushing the door outward. and your standard emergency door on a plane is much smaller the 3x7. Just FYI

[Gregorian]

16. Whoops. That was an obvious one. Thanks for waking me up.

I had to think about it for a minute. And then it donned on me. Duh...

[boppers]

17. Higher altitude = lower ambient (outside) air pressure.

That's why they add pressure to the cabin.

It's also why it's harder to breathe at higher altitudes, because there's less air pressure.

Which is also why modern planes fly so high, because there's less "outside air" to fly through, and less resistance as a result.

[Gregorian]

24. I know. I've piloted aircraft. I should have known better.

And I'm an engineer. So it's a double embarrassment.

The real logic is that if the air is too thin to allow breathing, outside the plane, then the pressure inside the plane must be greater than the outside.

Alright, we've flogged this academic thing to death. But thanks again.

[catgirl]

13. How about the skydiving plane hijacker?

"D.B. Cooper" jumped from a commercial plane over Washington state in 1971.

On edit: I see info. on this above.

[leveymg]

19. DC-9 had a ramp at the rear of the plane - recall, plane slowed to

[trof]

26. It was a B-727. Resulted in the 'Cooper Vane' modification.

In the wake of multiple "copycat" hijackings in 1972 (see above), the FAA required that all Boeing 727 aircraft be fitted with a device, later dubbed the "Cooper vane", which prevented lowering of the aft airstair during flight.<145> Several airlines elected to abandon use of the airstair entirely, and simply welded the aft doors of their 727s shut.<142>

A less-well-known modification mandated as a direct result of the hijacking was the installation of peepholes in all cockpit doors, making it possible for the cockpit crew to observe events in the cabin with the door closed.<146>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._B._Cooper#Aircraft_modifications

Airflow on the paddle rotates the bolt across the airstairs.

[TheeHazelnut]

8. Cause of incident discovered...

Flight attendant announced the in-flight movie was to be Jack Black in "Gulliver's Travels," man couldn't take it and fled for the door.

[leveymg]

20. He should have gotten his ticket refunded before he tried to exit the theatre.

[TheMadMonk]

10. Strikes me the opportunity to address several problems with modern...

...air travels presents itself here.

Terrorist class travel. On The List, or got a rep for unruly inflight behaviour, you may still travel. In an adult daiper, and full restraints.

Just my http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal">Modest Proposal.

[boppers]

18. I have a movie suggestion for you.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118880/

[No Elephants]

21. ONE paassenger? You'd think many would have rushed to the door.

[apnu]

23. It is possible that in this Mass. incident the door was over the wing.

Where you sit next to the door. I just had a flight to and from CA where I sat in an exit row like that. I had the window seat. If I had tried to open the door the only people available to subdue me would have been the two men sitting next to me.

In the other incident on the Houston-Chicago flight the guy got out of his seat and walked to the front of the plane. Up there, lots of people can respond and subdue the guy.

[Odin2005]

22. I'm guessing this guy is mentally ill.

Sounds like something a manic or schizophrenic individual would do. Poor guy, I hope he gets the help he needs. :(

[boppers]

25. As compared to people motivated by faith?

Who are not mentally ill?

[Odin2005]

27. Actual terrorists would not be so obvious until it was too late to stop them.