There’s a thread over in MPSIMS (it’s pronounce em-pee-sims, period) about plane crashes. My question, what exactly are the injuries which tend to kill almost everyone in major crashes? Dismemberment? Massive head or internal injuries? I’m convinced i’d survive any crash.
It’s called blunt trauma. To the head or to the torso. You probably wouldn’t survive.
Imagine how far forward you jerk when you slam on the brakes in your car, going relatively slowly, even. Like 30. And lots of people in car accidents slam their heads into the windshield, etc, you know?
The Egypt Air plane was clocked on radar going over 600mph when it slammed into the ocean. At that speed, your head doesn’t just hit the seat/person/suitcase in front of you. Your head goes through it. And it goes through your head just the same.
I’m also relatively certain that a fair amount of dismemberment takes place as well. Just like anything hitting the ground at a high rate of speed (or even falling from a high place), an airplane breaks into a lot of pieces in a crash. Naturally, everything inside gets smashed together and ripped apart as well.
Wish I knew the physics better, but I know that’s the answer to the OP for the most part.
More thoughts:
What’s it like? I know this is some kind of morbid curiosity. I’m thinking of the Egypt Air or Alaska Air… TWA. I mean, being on the plane and knowing it’s going down. That’s gotta be terrifying.
I’ve often heard that most people aren’t alive when the plane hits the ground/water. They pass out from the shock so they don’t really see it happen to the very end. True? How can anyone tell?
At 600 mph, straight down, everything not secured in the plane will be thrown to the rear. These are called ‘g-forces’. Belted in your seat, you would be pushed back into the cushions, your eyeballs and all your internal organs would be distended and yes, you probably would die before the plane hits the water (or land) from massive internal injuries. :eek: Or you could be killed by the rows of seats in front of you breaking off the floor and slamming into you Did you realize that your car seat is bolted down more securly than an airplane seat is? That’s because they need to move the seats around (enlarge the 1st class section if more passengers are expected, etc.)
Don’t expect that flimsy seat belt they have fool you; it ain’t gonna save you in a crash, it WILL however, keep you from smashing into the ceiling when violent turbulence occurs, so keep that belt on if you’re not headed to the loo. People HAVE been killed on airplanes that way.
Should have said ‘Don’t LET that flimsy seat belt they have fool you, etc’
And I used to make a good living as a proofreader :o
Not quite. If the aircraft is accellerating, you would be pushed back into your seat. If the airplane is falling at the same rate as you are, you will be “weightless” relative to the interior of the aircraft. This is part of astronaut training. A jet flies a parabolic profile, diving out of the sky to allow the astronaut-trainees to experience weightlessness. The plane is known as “The Vomit Comet”.
Good point Johnny L.
Don’t forget though, that while it may SEEM that everything is floating it’s all still moving very fast (including you!). Once the plane reaches the ground, everything that was “floating” is gonna hit the ground too. Ouch.
UhUh.
Think Strawberry Jam.
I’ve seen the results of aircraft crashes first hand. It’s not pretty. If the aircraft breaks into a kazillion pieces, what makes you think you won’t? And these were military fighters, built sturdier than commercial types.
VB
The ways of cats and little girls are mysterious.
Johnny Harvard,
I thought I made it clear, but in case I didn’t: You are correct. If you do not recover from the dive the sudden stop at the end may be considered unpleasant.
Kinetic energy poisoning? :rolleyes:
Hey - I didn’t say you were wrong, Johnny L. I just wanted to add a little zing to the idea. Actually this little bit of knowledge about floating and falling is a favorite of mine. I think Einstein called it the “equivalence postulate” or something like that, except he used an elevator falling a constant speed instead of an airplane. Cool concept. 
While some do, a lot of crashes don’t hit the ground straight and at top speed. In many cases the pilot has partial control and manages a softer landing (relatively speaking). In that case, people are often alive after the crash and are killed by the toxic smoke of the fire. I’ve heard that the worst poisons come from burning cabin furnishings, jet fuel is much less lethal.
Although "Jet fuel" sounds ominous its nothing more than kerosene.
Speaking of the kind of shock you must go into, I heard on the news that the Alaskan Airlines plane was UPSIDE DOWN when it hit the water. That must be horrible.
“The idea of a walk-in closet sounds frightening. If I’m ever sittin’ at home and a closet walks in, I’m gettin’ outta there.” ~George Carlin
I’m not sure it would be as terrifying as you think. It’s all happening VERY fast, and the human mind isn’t very good at believing it’s really going to die. There might be screaming and such, but the feeling probably isn’t much worse than lots of us have felt if we’ve ever been in close calls before. I was a passenger in a car that went out of control and skidded a LONG way into another car, at 60 mph. I could easily have been killed. But I wasn’t scared at any point, because my mind just didn’t have time to believe it.
As for the pilots, it’s a matter of fact that pilots don’t really believe they are going to die until just before impact - they are too busy trying to stay alive to think about it. If you listen to a voice recorder, you’ll often hear calm, professional voices saying, “Try ‘A’. Try ‘B’. Okay, let’s try ‘C’… Oh shit.”
No panic, no screaming, no prayers or last goodbyes to loved ones. Usually just ‘Oh shit’ or some other short expletive.
I agree, there is no point in which a flight crew would give up. And the impact happens so fast the human brain could not perceive it.
However, in the case of the worst (single) air crash ever, the Japanese 747 which lost its rudder, the passengers were aware for quite awhile that there was no hope. Several “goodbye” letters were found in the wreckage, one over 20 pages long. Not fun.
The forces in that impact have been calculated to be over 1800 g’s. Therefore, if your head weighs 10 pounds, it would experience a force of nine tons.
With all this talk about crashing, I want to point out again that airplanes rarely crash. Think about the hundreds of thousands of aircraft that don’t crash every day.
How do the airlines settle with the families?
Decelleration Trauma.