Some time ago, while doing some research, I came across an account of a balloon ascent made by English balloonists James Glashier and Henry Coxwell in 1862, during which they ascended to extreme heights. A decent description with some quotes from Glashier’s account can be found here.
The story is an amazing one. To make a very brief summary, he and his assistant set off in a gas balloon and Glashier made various observations of the atmosphere at high altitudes. Evenutally, Glashier claimed, their altimeter showed some 29000 feet (in other words, a height to which modern jets fly). However, his vision was starting to deteriorate. A numbness then came over Glashier’s body, and finally he blacked out. He remained unconscious for about 7 minutes; when he woke up, he found that Coxwell’s hands had gone numb. Coxwell had climbed the rigging of the balloon in order to open the valve that would let out the gas and allow them to descend; however, having lost the use of his hands, he had had to pull the cord with his teeth and had thus only very narrowly saved them from rising to an altitude which would have killed them. Apparently, they estimated that they may have risen as high as 37000 feet before they started to descend.
Now, based on our scientific knowledge of today, how much of this story are we really to believe? They clearly did rise to an exceptional and dangerous altitude, but many would doubt that they could have survived the thin air and the cold at 37000 feet. In fact, friends I’ve spoken to have doubted that they even rose to 29000 feet - one told me that he knew people who had experienced altitude sickness (I assume at significantly lower altitudes in high mountains) and that they had reported it as being crippling. Could Glashier’s altimeter have shown overly high altitudes? How high, realistically, could they have climbed and survived without oxygen equipment? And do you believe that Coxwell could have managed to hold on to the rigging with (I assume) his inner arms without the use of his hands and pulled the cord on the valve with his teeth?
29000 feet is about the height of Everest and people DO survive for short periods of that time at that height without supplementary oxygen so it’s possible they were around that high.
Th relevant facts about consciousness and survival vs. altitude are fairly well known today. This is a good primer:
The balloonists would have been operating under the normal ascent column, or in fact somewhat slower which has problems of it’s own.
My own wag is they probably made the low 20s before passing out and trying open the valve to descend respectively, and may have apexed in the high 20s. High 20s and high 30s seems real implausible to me just based on the time involved to get there and back vs. survival.
Their altimeter readings can be partly discounted as 1) the atmosphere was not well-known and well-modeled then, and b) the mechanical precision needed at those upper altitudes where small pressure changes represent large altitude changes would have been tough in 1862. Presumably they used a mercury column barometer but even then the slightest glitch in construction, calibration, or observation would give them a reading several thousand feet off of reality.
To ensure accuracy, instruments are calibrated under the conditions one wishes to measure. An example is salt water aquarium refractometers, which measure the salinity of water. Many aquarists calibrate them with reverse osmosis water, which has a salinity of zero. Reference fuilds of 35 PPT are available. There may be significant errors from a device calibrated at 0 PPT when measuring 35 PPT. I imagine that would be responsible for the altitude error.
Even if people CAN climb Everest without masks, they acclimate themselves for weeks at 5000-6000 meters. Going up to 10000 meters in a few minutes would be deadly.
My understanding is that the acclimation period is to allow improved function at the altitude in question, rather than an issue of survival.
Southwest 1380 experience rapid decompression from 32000 feet and the only fatality was a passenger sucked partly out of the aircraft. I don’t think that altitude was the cause of death, given that other passengers were subjected to the same decompression and came out fine.
You wouldn’t die instantly, but they very quikly started going down and even 4000 meters is perfectly passable. However, going up quickly and staing over 10000 meters for, say, 10 or 15 minutes, is not conducent to living.
David Blaine made it to 25,000 ft with “no” protective gear. He did have oxygen so he wasn’t subject to hypoxia. But neither was he subject to hypothermia. Even in very dangerous conditions, the human body is quite resilient.
See LSLGuy’s link to the Time of Useful Consciousness page, which shows that if you ascend much past ~20,000 feet at a “normal” (for aviation) rate of climb, you’ll be unconscious a few minutes after reaching that altitude. If you ascend in a pressurized cabin and then experience rapid decompression, TUC is dramatically shortened. Taking days or weeks to ascend a mountain like Everest definitely is about survival.
Deaths due to rapid decompression on commercial airliners are extremely rare because:
Passengers and crew promptly don O2 masks afterward, and
Standard procedure after a decompression event is to quickly (before anyone’s O2 supply runs out) bring the aircraft down to a life-sustaining altitude.
In decompression incidents that resulted in deaths, it’s either because it was a slow decompression that nobody noticed, or a rapid decompression in which the occupants somehow didn’t get their O2 masks on in time to maintain consciousness (and control of the aircraft).
As folks have said, the issue is not decompression, the bends, or any of that sort of stuff related to low atmospheric pressure.
It’s simply that unconsciousness due to low blood/brain oxygenation (due in turn to low atmospheric pressure, or more precisely low partial pressure of oxygen within the low pressure atmosphere) is the limiting factor. A human will get stupid then pass out long before any other part of their body is damaged.
It’s fine to get stupid and pass out; probably 10 people on that Southwest airplane did just that. As long as there’s somebody still awake to remedy the situation and get them down to a breathable atmosphere before permanent brain / body damage results.
Or somebody who “put on their mask before assisting others” as the saying goes. Which option airliner passengers have but Glashier & Coxwell did not.
In the OP’s story Glashier was doomed once senseless unless saved by Coxwell who lasted just a little bit longer. And who may well have been alerted to their grave situation by watching Glashier fade to stupidity & unconsciousness while feeling similar milder but increasingly worrisome effects himself.
it doesn’t matter the scenario, there’s always somebody who holds the record for closest call. For close calls in clueless high altitude flight, these guys are probably the record holders.
Here is a YouTube of a close call we have a full recording of. On that page, expand the explanation below the vid; it’s worth reading as are the comments (for once).
From what I’ve been able to scare up on Google, their own estimate was 37000 feet, based on some kind of thermometer readings. Subsequent scientists have more accurately estimated their maximum altitude as in the high 20s, low 30s, which lines up with what modern scientific inquiry and other more contemporary accounts mention (the Zenith in 1875 reached 28820 feet, and the aeronauts suffered similar symptoms as Glashier and Coxwell had, before two of them died)
Might be worth noting the case of paraglider pilot Ewa Wisnierska, who was carried to an altitude above 9900 m (over 32,000’) in a thunderstorm. She definitely lost consciousness, but eventually landed safely and made a full recovery.
So a altitude of 10 km seems at least remotely plausible.
Altitude sickness is apparently fairly common at Lukla, but not, as far as I remember, among DC3 passengers at around the same alititude.
Altitude sickness, I think, is something that gets worse when you stay at altitude, is made worse by exertion, and is reduced by previous high-altitude exposure over the previous few months. It is possible that a balloon trip is short, does not involve much exertion, and that the balloonists had previous high-altitude exposure, and even that they were individually not as susceptible to altitude sickness as some other person: only some people who go to Lukla get altitude sickness.
IOW, it is my opinion that the problems I would have in a balloon rising to 10,000’ would not be fairly described as ‘altitude sickness’.
I’m not sure what I meant, but your interpretation seems reasonable. After I wrote that I went to bed. I don’t have the excuse of high altitude, because I’m more or less at see level.
