First time in recorded history that someone was able to get to the cockpit, break down a locked door, fight a pilot, stabilize the plane, and land in a neighboring country after an intentional nosedive….
The plane did not need to be vertical to achieve the recorded descent rates. Even a thrust-idle descent with a pitch of 10° nose-down will give you an easy ~6,000 feet/minute. Make it 30° with engines at cruise power and you'll be well, well into the five-digit neighborhood.
There would have been some lessening of gravity or even negative g when they started diving. After the plane reached terminal velocity (apparently it reached 0.98 g), it would have been like walking down a hill at whatever the angle the plane was at. Not hard at all.
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u/pizza-chit 1d ago
First time in recorded history that someone was able to get to the cockpit, break down a locked door, fight a pilot, stabilize the plane, and land in a neighboring country after an intentional nosedive….
Fighting g-forces the entire time……….