# Would you die instantly in a plane crash? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 28, 2006, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218 "2006-10-28T08:12:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/41 "2006-10-29T09:26:25Z")
I thought the question in the OP was more along the lines of, “If you hit something at 500 mph, would you feel anything?” In other words, is there a moment of perception of blinding pain perhaps, or the feeling that you’re being crushed or something? I’m pretty sure the answer is no. The destruction of the brain happens faster than our ability to perceive it. There’s no time of any coherent thought to form along the lines of “I’m being crushed!”. So I think the answer is that if you were reading a book or something and your plane hit a brick wall, you’d never know it. It woud be like a light being switch off. ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/42 "2006-10-29T12:30:47Z")
Die in a plane crash?? Jeez I almost croaked when we hit some turbulence coming back from the US a few years back. I’d be stiff as a board long before we hit mother Earth ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2006, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/43 "2006-10-29T23:07:58Z")
Mickey Mouse don’t need no parachute. Due to increased surface area/weight decreasing terminal velocity, little critters like mice can plummet a couple thousand feet onto concrete, shake it off and go on their merry way. Caution: Don’t throw hamsters off of airplanes! At best, they could survive a fall from a moderately high skyscraper. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/44 "2006-10-30T03:45:17Z")
If my math is correct, if you are sitting in a plane 100 feet from the nose and the plane strikes a hard object at 400 MPH, you and the nose of the plane will meet in less than a fifth of a second. And you’d be crushed faster than that, since there’s a lot of stuff between you and the plane’s nose. I believe Sam is correct, and that your brain will be physically destroyed before you can become conscious of the impact. Assuming a near-full-speed impact into something hard. ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/45 "2006-10-30T03:52:41Z")
[QUOTE=RickJay] I believe Sam is correct, and that your brain will be physically destroyed before you can become conscious of the impact. Assuming a near-full-speed impact into something hard. [/QUOTE] I forget where I heard this, but: **Q:** Where is the safest place to sit on an airliner? **A:** Well, Imagine pushing a stick of asparagus into a blender… There isn’t one. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/46 "2006-10-30T09:32:49Z")
[QUOTE=TheLoadedDog] There is a video of the Mt Erebus disaster of twenty or thirty years ago. The video was being shot inside the passenger compartment when the plane hit the mountain, and the tape survived. Basically, there were people just laughing and talking, and then there was a white flash that lasts half a second, and the tape ends. At those sort of speeds, I doubt you’d know much about anything. Of course, that’s a controlled flight at speed, straight into a mountainside. Falling from Flight Level 38 out of control, with the cabin looking like the hysteria scene in _Airport_ - now _that_ would be my fear. You’d have time to contemplate what was going to happen. [/QUOTE] I don’t disagree that death/destruction would be pretty much instantaneous in the case of a full-speed collision, but I wonder if this video footage only supports that conclusion by coincidence. The part of the tape most vulnerable to destruction is the part currently exposed at the top of the cassete - the parts already recorded and spooled inside are a little more protected For this reason, it is possible that both instantaneous destruction and fast-but-not-instantaneous-destruction may appear very similar when captured on videotape. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Ripley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@Tom\_Ripley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Ripley)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/47 "2006-10-30T10:00:19Z")
Picture the plane heading to the ground at 600 miles per hour, nose first. Everything is a blur, the noise and vibration distort everything. Suddenly, the cabin breaks in half and you are ejected from the plane itself, plummeting freely in open air. The noise dissapates somewhat and you open your eyes briefly to see the plane before you tumbling into the ocea, catching fire in a plume of fire an smoke, creating a lake of hell beneath you. The ocean comes up at you, the seat you were recently strapped to breaks the surface of the ocean before you and you tumble into the icy deep. You snap breifly into the abyss. You awake seconds later, both legs broken, but alive. You are underwater, itself alive with the oil fire above you on the oceans surface. You feel pain, pain from the below zero temperatures, pain from your legs. The oil fire above you stretches for what seems like forever, a true lake of fire. You cant swim far enough to get away, but you try anyway. Your lungs are stininging, spots are appearing. Instinctivly, you crawl to the surface, to the fire. You know its madness, but the animal inside you is crying for life, but you breach the surface into the sun. The fire englufs everything, and you suck in a lungfull of superheated air and noxiouse, black gass. Your throat scorches shut, your hair bursts into flame, your clothes melt to your skin and all you can feel is the fire singing every nerve to a charred mess. You try to scream, but no sound can be heard above the dim roar of the fire. A wave pushes you under, the force of the water pushes the charred flesh from your bones and the last thing you see is the blackened mess on what was once your face floating above you. You sink, into the endless depths of the ocean. Nah, i think instant death is the least of your worries. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Ripley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@Tom\_Ripley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Ripley)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/48 "2006-10-30T10:02:19Z")
Damnit, i wish i could edit that. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/49 "2006-10-30T10:04:31Z")
Falling from any significant distance into water is qualitatively the same as falling onto concrete. You don’t go ‘splash’ into the water, you go ‘splat’. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/50 "2006-10-30T10:12:20Z")
[QUOTE=silenus] People have survived free-fall from extended altitudes, but none of them landed on water. That is like, as noted above, like landing on concrete. The altitude record-holder, IIRC, was a Russian pilot who bailed out at @27000ft. and landed on the side of a mountain covered with a couple hundred feet of snow. The snow gave him a cushioned(?) landing, and since he hit at an acute angle to the slope, he slid down the mountain to a stop. Broke a few bones, but he lived. [/QUOTE] I think I’ve heard that story, but he was trumped by an air stewardess, [Vesna Vulovic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesna_Vulovic). ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Ripley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@Tom\_Ripley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Ripley)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 10:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/51 "2006-10-30T10:20:48Z")
Yes, thats why i smartly states that the seat landed in the water first, breaking the surface tension and cushioning the fall. AHA! ---
**Author:** ![mittu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecd19e/32.png) [@mittu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mittu)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/52 "2006-10-30T10:22:53Z")
Didn’t Mythbusters prove that breaking the surface tension before entering water did nothing to improve your chances of survival? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/53 "2006-10-30T10:27:22Z")
[QUOTE=mittu] Didn’t Mythbusters prove that breaking the surface tension before entering water did nothing to improve your chances of survival? [/QUOTE] Yes, they did. Surface tension isn’t what kills you when you hit water, mass does. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Ripley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b782af/32.png) [@Tom\_Ripley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Ripley)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/54 "2006-10-30T10:43:34Z")
Well damnit, it was fun to write. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/55 "2006-10-30T11:33:30Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] Yes, they did. Surface tension isn’t what kills you when you hit water, mass does. [/QUOTE] I think that the killing factor here is the incompressibility of water, when you plunge in you have to displace the water to the sides to sink in; if you go too fast the water can´t be displaced sideways fast enough to prevent you become a mancake. Now if you happen to have a grenade launcher with you and fire it directly bellow you a split second before impact you may get some cushioning from the upwards firing geiser of water and the billions and billions of bubbles in the water you´ll be falling into… would make a nice scene on a Bond film. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2006, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/56 "2006-10-30T12:06:37Z")
[QUOTE=Ale] I think that the killing factor here is the incompressibility of water, when you plunge in you have to displace the water to the sides to sink in; if you go too fast the water can´t be displaced sideways fast enough to prevent you become a mancake. [/quote] Incompressibility would be one factor, but you also mention displacement, and mass is not insignificant in this - displacing something as heavy as water in a very short time requires a fair bit of energy, which is absorbed from the falling object in a very short time, effectively stopping it. I expect viscosity also plays a part in the displacement side of things. If you think about it, the human body, although somewhat more durable, is a big bag of water; when you throw water at water, both target and projectile are going to splash. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/57 "2006-10-31T14:03:29Z")
[QUOTE=Tom Ripley] Picture the plane heading to the ground at 600 miles per hour, nose first. Everything is a blur, the noise and vibration distort everything. Suddenly, the cabin breaks in half and you are ejected from the plane itself, plummeting freely in open air. The noise dissapates somewhat and you open your eyes briefly to see the plane before you tumbling into the ocea, catching fire in a plume of fire an smoke, creating a lake of hell beneath you. The ocean comes up at you, the seat you were recently strapped to breaks the surface of the ocean before you and you tumble into the icy deep. You snap breifly into the abyss. You awake seconds later, both legs broken, but alive. You are underwater, itself alive with the oil fire above you on the oceans surface. You feel pain, pain from the below zero temperatures, pain from your legs. The oil fire above you stretches for what seems like forever, a true lake of fire. You cant swim far enough to get away, but you try anyway. Your lungs are stininging, spots are appearing. Instinctivly, you crawl to the surface, to the fire. You know its madness, but the animal inside you is crying for life, but you breach the surface into the sun. The fire englufs everything, and you suck in a lungfull of superheated air and noxiouse, black gass. Your throat scorches shut, your hair bursts into flame, your clothes melt to your skin and all you can feel is the fire singing every nerve to a charred mess. You try to scream, but no sound can be heard above the dim roar of the fire. A wave pushes you under, the force of the water pushes the charred flesh from your bones and the last thing you see is the blackened mess on what was once your face floating above you. You sink, into the endless depths of the ocean. [/QUOTE] Unpleasant? Perhaps, but that’s a day in the park compared to being on the receiving end of one of my wife’s harangues :eek: ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/58 "2006-10-31T14:44:36Z")
[QUOTE=picunurse] Here is a [very good article](http://abcnews.go.com/Business/FlyingHigh/story?id=1936770&page=1) explaining why that isn’t true. [/quote] Hm, let’s take a read. > [@](#): > > What if you’re at 39,000 feet and the airplane depressurizes and the yellow masks drop? > > You have nine to 15 seconds to place the mask over your own face before you lost consciousness Plugging in 39,000 feet into the free-fall equation, we get a result of about 34 seconds before you reach 20,000 feet, where per your article below, the period of useful consciousness is about 20 minutes. Note that of course since you are only spending a few moments at the maximum altitude, that minimum duration of nine to 15 seconds doesn’t really apply… It would probably approach 30 seconds, and someone better with applied calculus than me could probably give you the exact figure. Anyway, this article doesn’t prove what you seem to think it does. > [@](#): > > Here is a more [scholarly article](http://www.iiimef.usmc.mil/medical/FMF/FMFE/FMFEref/fs_man/CHAPTER%201.html) OK, let’s take another read: > [@](#): > > 1. Disturbance Stage. In this stage, physiologic responses are inadequate to compensate for the oxygen deficiency, and hypoxia is evident. Subjective symptoms may include headache, fatigue, lassitude, somnolence, dizziness, “air-hunger,” and euphoria. At 20,000 feet, the period of useful consciousness is 15 to 20 minutes. In some cases, there are no subjective symptoms noticeable up to the time of unconsciousness. Again, as noted, people can survive quite a long time at altitude, and people have even climbed Mt. Everest (roughly 29,000 feet) with no oxygen at all. It’s clear that for a falling human, the air pressure drop would probably make them woozy, but it would be doubtful whether it would cause a blackout. > [@](#): > > Also, being exposed to a temperature of -40°F in street clothes would cause rapid hypothermia, which would contribute to poor blood flow to the brain. You’d need to be a lot colder than -40°F to go hypothermic in 30 seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/59 "2006-10-31T16:41:39Z")
[QUOTE=Gus\_Handsome] Like someone selse mentioned here, I think it really would be a horrific last 30 seconds (or however long it takes) while the plane is spiraling down and your waiting for the impact. [/QUOTE] My Googling has not turned up a cite for this but I seem to remember a re-creation of the last minutes of TWA Flight 800 that crashed into the Atlantic. Long story short it was a harrowing ride lasting well over 3 minutes. Speculation is that the people in the back of the plane were likely conscious while looking out at a front of the plane that was no longer there (front part tore off). As the plane started to dive for the water it gained air speed and levelled off then dove, then levelled off. Sorta like a roller coaster. Of course if the people in the back really were conscious and looking at half the plane missing I can only imagine the horror. The plane broke apart at 13,700 feet so no passing out from high altitude it would seem. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2006, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218/60 "2006-10-31T16:56:10Z")
[QUOTE=John DiFool] I think you’ll need to cover your nads and your face with your hands, mittu. And clench your 1/2 bodily holes down there VERY hard, so the water doesn’t enter them. [/QUOTE] To work on an offshore oil rig, you have to take a day long water survival course. To jump from a high distance (such as during a rig fire, 200’?), we were taught to stay upright as vertically as possible (“just _step off_!”), cover our mouth and nose with our right hand, elbow at the side, and to grasp our right elbow with our left hand. The theory was that when you landed in the cold water, your first reaction would be to gasp, causing you to inhale a lung full of water. I don’t know if this had any basis in fact, but it made sense. We also had an exercise where we were strapped in a two-man mock up of a jet cabin, blindfolded, turned upside down, and dunked in a swimming pool. This was to simulate a crash landing in water, and to practice getting out. This taught me two things: 1) Always know your location in relation to the exits, and 2) If you crash in water, your ass will probably be grass (I “drowned” the first time). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-die-instantly-in-a-plane-crash/378218.md?page=4)