# Was an American Airlines crewmember "sucked" out of an airplane?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-an-american-airlines-crewmember-sucked-out-of-an-airplane/42388>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 22, 2000, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-an-american-airlines-crewmember-sucked-out-of-an-airplane/42388 "2000-11-22T23:28:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![The\_Saint](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a8b319/32.png) [@The\_Saint](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Saint)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2000, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-an-american-airlines-crewmember-sucked-out-of-an-airplane/42388/1 "2000-11-22T23:28:52Z")

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Yesterday’s paper said a crewmember was “sucked from plane after emergency landing” in Miami Monday.

It’s a sad accident, obviously, but don’t you think he simply tripped or slipped out?

They said “he opened the door when the plane was still presurized”.

I thought when a plane was “presurized” it was merely made a little closer to ground pressure, rather than the thin air above.

But it would still be less pressure in the cabin than on the ground, so he should have been “blown back inside”, shouldn’t he?

Or do I have that wrong.

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**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\
**Post date:** [November 22, 2000, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-an-american-airlines-crewmember-sucked-out-of-an-airplane/42388/2 "2000-11-22T23:40:54Z")

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We had a thread about this a couple of days ago:

[How the devil do you get ‘sucked’ out of a plane when it’s on the ground?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=47450)