Re: Explosive decompression - how fast?

Wayne Throop <throopw@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> : Russell Wallace <russell.wallace.nospam@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> : That's interesting, because it appears to conflict with the usual 
> : description of explosive decompression on aircraft: even a fairly
small 
> : hole in e.g. an airliner at altitude, will cause everything that isn't

> : nailed down - including people who aren't strapped into their seats -
to 
> : be quickly sucked out the hole. Is that description simply inaccurate,

> : or is there a difference in the cases that I'm missing?
> 
> It's inaccurate.  I seem to recall there was a mythbusters that
> concluded "busted".

The image of everything that's not nailed down flying out the door may be 
inaccurate, but the earlier estimate of 0.3m/s would appear to be 
inaccurate as well. Perhaps the most famous explosive decompression 
incident is Aloha Airlines 243 which suddenly lost a large section of skin
but managed to land safely. One flight attendant was thrown to the floor 
and another one was thrown out of the plane altogether, never to be seen 
again. A 737 isn't particularly large but it would require substantially 
more imparted velocity than that to throw somebody out. A spacecraft 
pressurized to 1 atmosphere should be a bit worse as well, since the 
accident in question occurred at 24,000ft where the outside air pressure 
is still about .4 atmospheres.

It should be noted that a *small* hole doesn't do this, because a small 
hole doesn't result in explosive decompression in the first place. A small

hole will *leak*, not cause a bang, and there would just be some wind. 
Thus the fears of instant death due to a gunfight piercing the hull are 
completely overblown, and I believe this is what Mythbusters investigated.

But this is an entirely different scenario from opening a large airlock 
door or the case of the poor Aloha Airlines flight attendant.

-- 
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software