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by nerdponx 889 days ago
Let's also consider just how much worse this situation could have been. The door panel blew out next to the one seat that happened to be unoccupied, and it happened at 16,000 ft instead of 26,000 ft.
2 comments

Not a big difference if everyone was with fastened seat belt.

There is a real story of another 737 of Aloha Airlines flight 243 where part of the fuselage blown away together with unlucky flight attendant at 24000 feet: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/falling-to-pieces-the-ne...

Aloha Airlines Flight 243 (Apr 28, 1988) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloha_Airlines_Flight_243
And even so, sucked the shirt right off the boy in the middle seat! I shudder to imagine how things would have gone 20 minutes further in to the flight.
Almost certainly a fatal crash if they were a few minutes later into the flight
No it's not. Crews are trained for decompression events and they've happened at higher altitudes than 26,000 feet before with no airframe loss at all (for example, the Southwest 737-700 where a fan blade ruptured the window happened at 33,000 feet). It may likely have been a fatal incident but definitely not likely a crash.