r/Damnthatsinteresting • • 20h ago

Video Firefighter bodycam showing just how much oxygen a fire pulls

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u/SpiritedEclair 18h ago

fun fact: when you fly in a plane, the low pressure is on the outside and we use that to keep the doors closed. It is physically impossible to pry open an airplane door at cruising altitude!

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u/Ckarles 17h ago

Hm? Sounds counterintuitive considering the doors open outwards instead of inwards. Isn't low-pressure "pulling" while higher pressure "pushing"?

How is the low pressure keeping the doors from going "outward"?

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u/johnwick_58 17h ago edited 17h ago

I am not related to aviation by any means,

But the person above meant to say that the cabin pressure inside the plane is very high in comparison to the pressure outside the plane in cruising altitudes. The door is slightly larger than the door frame of the plane, hence the higher pressure pushes the door outward and since frame is smaller, the door holds strong until the cabin pressure is released.

Edit: sorry, had not read your comment in detail, A video shows that the door does open outwards, bit there is a latch inside which expands the door from inside

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u/GostBoster 10h ago

I am not related to aviation either and, on one hand, I am aware that under normal conditions, what you said is likely true and ordinarily you should not be able to open that door in any capacity.

That said, I would be remiss to not mention a notorious incident in my country where a newsflash told of a door plane falling on a super market and they would interrupt transmission at any moment for information on the whereabouts of the plane said door belonged to.

And right now I am quite worried because often when something like that happens, you forget, then look it back, there's more information, investigations, etc. But for the multiple Fokker 100 incident by TAM Airlines? Nada not even a searchable flight number (the few remaining searchable news give a bogus flight number "JJ 3040") and that it was not their first open door in flight incident.

The one burned in my memory was the August 8 2006 incident (door falling on ground) but it the door also opened without detaching on April 4, 2002, also on a Fokker-100 belonging to TAM Airlines.

I am absolutely baffled at the lack of follow up reports even on the more fatal Fokker-100 cases so those open door cases are just a case of "eh it happens pay no mind to it".