Myth busted: Handguns WILL NOT blow up a jetliner!

[shep854]

On the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters program, a team pressurized an old jetliner to simulate flight at altitude, and shot a 9mm through the fuselage and a window. The plane did not explode, and a dummy and foam peanuts in the cabin were not disturbed.

Check your listings. The program is on NOW (11:23 CDT), and this team will use an explosive charge to see what happens

 

[Gary H]

This is why us Californians have made the purchase/sale of .50 caliber weapons illegal. Someone could sneak one on an aircraft and do some real damage. Also, old Normie boy knows that a nine in the hands of a pilot is much more dangerous than a hijacker intent upon destroying the plane, or any journalist with a 9mm.

 

[CannibalCrowley]

Already discussed here: Explosive decompression
and here: 2nd Amendment plug on Mythbusters (visual)
and here: Guns in planes myth BUSTED on nat'l TV!
and here: Discovery channel, now... (7:05 central)

Taking a little time to use the search function would help reduce the number of dupes.

 

[jefnvk]

Jumping on someone for posting something that was posted 9 months ago isn't really appropriate, IMHO. Can anyone say that they search through archives before they post anything? BTW, it is interesting reading for us who wern;t here 9 months ago, and who wouldn't think to search for that sort of thing.

 

[Kobun]

The use of the search function has been discussed here: (A LOOONG LIST THAT I WON'T BOTHER WITH)

OK, seriously, we are bound to discuss topics again and again. That is life, both here and when friends talk to each others.

 

[Kobun]

And to stay OT, I must say I enjoy Myth Busters very much!

It was realy interesting to see them test out bullets made out of ice, gelatine and meat.
Didn't work wery well...
So back to the drawingboard we go.

 

[Jim K]

I realize I already said this on another forum, but it is worth repeating. The concern about "explosive decompression" of an aircraft from a bullet is a myth concocted by anti-gun (and pro-terrorist) leftists to discourage having armed pilots and air marshals on aircraft. We need to remember that if terrorists take over a plane, everyone on it will die. A few holes in the fuselage, or even the death of an innocent person, are preferable to the death of all aboard the aircraft and perhaps having it used as a bomb to attack a nuclear reactor and kill thousands by radiation.

Jim

 

[jefnvk]

A few holes in the fuselage, or even the death of an innocent person, are preferable to the death of all aboard the aircraft and perhaps having it used as a bomb to attack a nuclear reactor and kill thousands by radiation.

Very often, people forget this. Could an innocent bystander be killed? Very possible. Is it likely that if the terrorist gains control of the plane, everyone on the plane dies? IMHO, its a much higher probability. And, as Jim mentioned, the fact that many more are probably going to be targeted, as well.

 

[Brian D.]

I'll take your sentiments one step farther, Mr. Keenan. Anyone who can legally carry, plus pass the Air Marshal's pistol qualification course (the tough version; heard they made up a "kinder gentler" course lately) should be given permission to carry aboard an aircraft.
Btw, I've seen exactly one episode of "Myth Busters". Lucky me, it was the one mentioned here.

 

[cracked butt]

I wonder how all of them B-17s and B-24's made it back to friendly soil after being shot up by german fighters and flak guns? Oh, you mean planes don't explode if they get a hole in them?

 

[hjaeger]

If Oleg were to make a poster of a Flak88 next to a USP40, next to a picture of a shot-up B-17 and a 747, it would make good propaganda; but the WW2 planes were not pressurized.

Frangible rounds, people....here, a representative of some munitions company took a TV crew to the range, loaded an M4 (NFA/LEO model) with his company's frangible rounds, and fired fullauto at an airliner door...expensive, but what is needed.

 

[PMDW]

I wonder how all of them B-17s and B-24's made it back to friendly soil after being shot up by german fighters and flak guns?

They weren't pressurized. Bad example.

 

[cracked butt]

They weren't pressurized. Bad example.

Same concept- aluminum tube with wings flying through the air.
IIRC, air pressure at 20 degrees C at sea level is only about 15 psi. I'm not sure what the pressure is at cruising altitudes, but its certainly more than 0 PSI.

I don't know of anything other than a ballon that will burst violently if it is pressurized up to 15 psi over atmospheric pressure, and a balloon is stretched several 1000% when inflated, unlike the aluminum hull of an aircraft which isn't going to stretch significantly at all.


At any rate, compression of 15 psi over the outside environment isn't going to do much more than hiss if a hole is put in it.

Back to the bomber argument- aircrew members didn't explode when punctured by bullets or flak depite the fact that the gasses in their lungs and dissolved in their blood vessels was higher than the the outside environment.

My grandfather was wounded on a B-24 and he somehow managed to live another 50 years.

 

[PMDW]

...

You completely missed the point. Nevermind.

 

[deej]

Yes, that damage occured IN FLIGHT. 24,000 feet to be (somewhat) precise.

http://www.aloha.net/~icarus/

After getting clearance from all pre-flight inspections, Aloha Airlines Flight 243 departed from Hilo, Hawaii en route to Honolulu on April 28, 1988. As the Boeing 737 leveled off at the top of its climb (about 24,000 feet), a major portion of the upper crown skin separated in flight causing an explosive decompression of the cabin. A senior flight attendant was swept away from the aircraft to her death, and 64 passengers were injured from jagged bits of metal that had broken loose and speared back among them. The pilot managed to land the aircraft safely, and afterwards engineers determined the cause of failure to be a small fracture that had been overlooked in the pre-flight inspections.

http://www.shodor.org/~jingersoll/weave4/tutorial/node2.html

 

[CannibalCrowley]

deej
It's misleading to only post a portion of the report, especially when the subject is very different from the subject at hand. Before Flight 243 even took off, it had a crack 6-8 inches long that was visible from inside the cabin as well as cracks further down the fuselage.

He's a site that gives a good step by step explanation of what happened: Flight 243 Separation Sequence

 

[BluesBear]

Misdirection

Once again the media presents the news with all of the smoke and mirrors of a Las Vegas magic show.


Try reading a newspaper in your car, in tha passenger seat, while crusing down the freeway at 60mph with all of the windows open.

It's rather difficult to turn the pages.

Now, imagine an airplane crusing at 500+MPH with a hole the size of your living room picture window in the side.

It's NOT decompression, but rather the outside wind speed creating suction that will pop a stewardess right out of her JCCFM pumps!

 

[Wiley]

Ever since that little story about planes exploding surfaced, I knew it was BS.

The B29 was used in the latter days of WWII and had pressurized compartments. The cockpit being the major.

Jap aircraft were armed with 20mm cannon and/or 30cal machine guns.

Many B29's came home with one or more holes. None exploded, had crew sucked out, etc due to decompression.

More leftist, blissninny, hoplophobe hysteria. :banghead:

 

[deej]

It's misleading to only post a portion of the report, especially when the subject is very different from the subject at hand. Before Flight 243 even took off, it had a crack 6-8 inches long that was visible from inside the cabin as well as cracks further down the fuselage.

Um, how is it misleading to point out that rapid decompression is not going to automatically lead to the in-flight destruction of the aircraft?

 

[BluesBear]

a major portion of the upper crown skin separated in flight causing an explosive decompression of the cabin.

That is the misleading portion.

 

[JPL]

"I wonder how all of them B-17s and B-24's made it back to friendly soil after being shot up by german fighters and flak guns? Oh, you mean planes don't explode if they get a hole in them?"

B-17s and B-24s were not pressurized.

The B-29 was the first American production bomber that was pressurized.

The Germans and Soviets, and possibly the Japanese, did experiment with very high altitude bombers and fighters that were pressurized.

Pressure at cruising altitudes (35,000 feet, plus minus) is about 2 PSI, if I remember correctly.

Most jetliners are pressurized to about 8 to 10 PSI.

 

[Jim K]

"Explosive decompression" cannot be caused by any holes caused by small caliber bullets fired by air marshals or terrorists. The pressurization system can easily handle that sort of thing. Now the whole top of the plane coming off is a different story, but even so the plane was not destroyed. (I'll bet it was hell to control, though.)

Terrorists would not even try to destroy a plane by shooting holes in it. If they could not gain control of it, they would use explosives to blow it apart. Don't forget that these hi-jackers are not trying to use the plane for transportation; they want to use it as a weapon and, unlike a previous generation of hi-jackers, they want to die in the process.

Jim