Quote:
Originally Posted by Kal
I'm guessing the sudden dive is just the action taken by the pilots as a measure against the decompression in the plane?
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Picked it in one. We are drilled on this procedure fairly regularly in the flight simulator. Rapid decompression from 29,000 (feet) while no doubt harrowing, is no where near as bad as say 39,000.
The difficult decision is "how quick do we descend?" (down to air the punters can breathe without an O2 mask).
I also use the word *descend*. Media hype of planes "dropping" 20,000 feet is just sensational rubbish. Only if the wings fall off will a plane *drop* (sadly, there is some very nasty footage out there of a water bomber doing just that)
Opposed to falling at 1g, the manoevure is very much a controlled affair.
Structural integrity of the airframe is invariably an unknown to the pilots after an event like this...but Boeing build them exceedingly well, and by virtue of the fact that despite a pretty large chunk of the aircraft is now sitting on the bottom of the south China sea, everyone walked away.
In short, the crew performed magnificently, and clearly earned their salary that day!