[Goz3rr]

Based on what? As horrific as it might be it wouldn't surprise me if passengers were conscious all the way down. Even if oxygen masks didn't deploy or work, at 26,000 feet you have a few minutes of useful consciousness after rapid decompression [1]. Combined with the fact that the plane would be rapidly descending.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_of_useful_consciousness

[MauranKilom]

Maybe I'm missing something: Why would the passengers be low on oxygen when they go into higher pressure air?

[Goz3rr]

They wouldn't be. As the plane descends and the pressure increases the oxygen levels increase as well.

[encoderer]

G forces.

[jacquesm]

Nonsense. G forces are changes in speed or direction, those were pretty mild based on what we know right now, freefall or powered flight into terrain does not give huge G forces until impact.

[encoderer]

I recall a similar nose down crash that saw 5G force before it was recovered at 11000 feet. But you seem to be very sure?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Airlines_Flight_006

[srvmshr]

5g forces on impact would imply the projectile stopped at ~50m/s^2 (numerically 5x the gravitational constant) deceleration. In a free fall, it hardly exceeds 1g, unless the aircraft was powering it to hurtle down faster

[encoderer]

Read the accident report. It hit nearly 5gs on a powered descent and roll before the pilot recovered the plane.

[jacquesm]

Yes, it did. Now what does it tell you that the crew never lost consciousness?

G-forces are not experienced equally based on the axis on which the plane is moving or the speed at which it accelerates/decelerates. The airframe of that plane was deformed with the wings bent permanently indicating non-plastic deformation, and yet the passengers were fine.

Imagine a plane rotating on the axis through the COG nose moving 'down', that would give the pilots negative G, the people near the tail positive G and everybody in between something along a gradient, those near the COG would likely not experience much difference. If the plane came out of a steep dive then there would be a lot of positive G, and if someone were to black out that would likely be only for a moment. A powered descent into terrain would be far less in terms of G's than violent maneuvers such as steep banks or coming out of a steep dive.