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by starkparker
1096 days ago
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Naval submarine hatches rely on the pressure to keep the hatch shut. The water pressure outside is greater than the air pressure inside. The hatch locks around a sealing o-ring. Escape trunks are sealed off from the rest of the ship and work like an airlock. Deepsea Challenger's outward-opening hatch/egress trunk worked the same way; indeed, its view window was on the hatch. |
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I don't remember which company it was, but there was an aircraft company that made the mistake of relying on screws instead of pressure to keep the cockpit windows in place.
The windows were installed from the outside with outside screws to hold them in place. During maintenance one of the windows got replaced and the worker accidentally used the wrong screws which were much weaker than the correct screws.
Next flight when the plane got high enough the difference between outside pressure and the higher pressure in the pressurize cabin blew the window out and one of the pilots got sucked out. Someone else in the cockpit was able to grab his legs on the way out and hold on keeping him from falling, although he spent the rest of the flight dangling out the window getting buffeted around pretty severely. The people left in the cockpit were sure the guy dangling out the window was dead, and they were having a hard time holding on, but they didn't want to lose his body and managed to keep him.
They also were having a hard time communicating with each other or with air traffic control because of the noise from the missing window.
They did get down safely, and the everyone's surprise found that the guy dangling in the window was alive, quite bruised, and had frostbite all over his face, but nothing permanent. He made a full recovery.
They redesigned the windows so on newer planes they installed from the inside with inside screws, whose job was now to keep the window from falling into the plane instead of keep it from falling out.
A "wrong screw" accident then might mean losing a window when taxiing or during takeoff or landing or at low altitude, before there is much pressure different between inside and outside. No one would be sucked out then and the noise would be a lot lower. At higher altitudes the pressure difference would be keeping the windows in place.
As I said I don't remember what company's plane had this accident. It was on one of those "air disaster" documentary shows.