Can You Open a Plane Door In Mid-Air?

May 5th, 2006 | By Jared Blank

Salon’s always good Ask the Pilot column examines a story from a couple of weeks ago where a passenger was arrested for trying to open one of the plane’s door’s in mid-air.  If you ever wondered about this, wonder no more:  it is nearly impossible to open a door in mid-air because of the pressurization of the cabin.  And even if you were to somehow get the door open (say, by forcing the pilot to depressurize the plane as still-missing thief D.B. Cooper did), the plane would not crash — though people not wearing seatbelts would be at risk for getting sucked out.  It’s a good read…





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  1. I’m not a Pilot but on larger commercial planes i would think there would be built in safties that would not allow a door to be opened during flight. At least I hope there are

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