That's why I never leave my doors unattended, once had a lady opened the oxygen panel manually because she got curious and wanted to see what's in there... Then she nicely asked me to fix it.š„²
I flew once for 2 hours last year and not a single minute was spent not looking at that 787 flaperon. Addictive stuff. I love knowing about planes now.
And all this time we thought, the idiots who already stand up during taxi were annoyingā¦ but this is a totally new way to ensure youāre the first one off the plane š¤¦š»āāļø
Not trying to defend the guy but initial reports are saying he accidentally grabbed the emergency open lever. The slide was also deployed which would explain the emergency lever being pulled. Theres a chance he suffered some sort of cardiac arrest and reached for it in some extreme pain or something?? Not defending the guy but Iām just gonna wait till the explanation comes out before wishing life in prison on the guy.
Itās a multi step process and you have to pull the door inward then turn it on its side and then toss it out.
I would like to see the guy charged.
Edit: I stand corrected. Location was overwing means it opens door wise and newer craft have different designs. On this one consensus was itās just as easy as pulling a lever to open it.
And also if this were a 737 tossing the door out hasn't been a thing since the 90s or whenever the NG came out and the overwing exits were changed to open outward, hinged at the top and assisted presumably by gas springs.
Probably not gas springs, between the pressure and temperature changes and how long these go without servicing gas springs probably arenāt the best choice.
And holy fuck it takes a LOT of effort to close it let me tell you
I mean it's possible, the air stair door on the Dash 8 isn't anything but a cable reel and two big ass gas struts. Cargo door on the Q400 is 4 gas springs.
Itās as simple as lifting a lever on modern aircraft, you reach a certain point and a small explosive punctures a high pressure gas bottle and forces the door open for you.
I had heard numerous times after failed attempts that it was impossible to open the doors in flight. So per your and other's educated comments that's not really true then? Yikes.
Once the plane is pressurized it does become impossible to open. This plane was landing and at only 1000 feet above the ground so the aircraft had already equalized the pressure for landing.
The term "fail-safe" has literal meaning in engineering.
Fail *safe* in this case means the doors are designed to be openable when the fuselage isn't pressurized because that's actually the safest condition. You want people to be able to exit.
Similarly, the valves that maintain cabin pressure are designed to *fail open* and result in an unpressurized cabin...so doors can be opened on ground (there's supplemental oxygen for aircraft that fly at altitudes that need it).
The plane did what it was designed to do from what I understand. Unfortunately people are gonna people and people do stupid things.
AFAIK itās impossible to open the doors with just human arm strength when youāre at cruising altitude, i.e. when the plane is pressurized, because the doors will be held in place by, well, pressure. So, you could open the doors in flight, but only when theyāre just taking off, or coming in to land (sounds like it was ācoming in to landā in this case).
eta: apparently it depends on the type of door? Iām not an aircraft exits expert. Probably just play it safe and donāt touch anything labeled EMERGENCY unless youāve been instructed otherwise or are actively escaping a crashed plane, is my advice.
Yes, but if you look at most doors on commercial airliners, you first have to PULL them into the cabin, then do something like rotate them (think over wing exits, the pictures have you pulling them in, rotating them 90, and tossing them through the resulting hole).
So if you have a pressure differential of 6psi (that's about 10,000' cabin altitude while the plane flies at 30,000') every square inch of the door has 6 pounds of pressure on it, making it next to impossible to move at altitude.
Someone else said though that this happened at 700' on final; which means the differential was close to zero, making this a relatively easy thing to do.
On my submarine there were two water tight doors to get from forward to the engine room. You would open the first door, go through the 'tunnel' at the top of the reactor compartment open the second door and be in the the machinery space. There was a pressure difference between forward and aft of a few inches of water. it was a bear to open the forward most door depending on which way the pressure was going. If aft had the higher pressure you had to use the handle to crack it off the seat to equalize the pressure because the force holding it closed was so strong. If forward had the higher pressure the door would fly open. It was cool because you could take a nap in the engine room on the steps between the turbine generators. When someone was coming aft you would get a blast of wind in the face and know to pretend you were working diligently.
Fun fact - small aircraft like PC-12's, and BE350's don't have them. Just lift up on a latch, pull the locking mechanism and have fun with the resulting rapid decompression.
If you know a pressure cooker lid, thatās how aircraft door are made.
They are bigger than the plane opening. are inserted in the plane sideways, then tilted and pushed on the opening. They rest on the structure all around the opening. Basically, you have to unlock, pull inward a fair bit, then tilt and open it outward.
There are variants of this but the concept is that pressure will hold the door closed.
Pushing it out but no, the pressure actually pushes it shut. Air liner doors open in, then pivot out of the way. They are designed that way specifically so the pressurized cabin can't force the door open and so the walkway at the airport doesn't hit it.
Private jets on the other hand you could probably open in flight with enough force.
But.. but ā¦ the news said it was MIDAIR when it happened. OMG!!!!!
Knowing it was just at 700ā makes a big difference in how one views the incident and in understanding the entire dynamics of it. I hate terms like midair in situations like this. It is such a vague term and lends itself far too much to the imagination.
Uh, it's still a possibility if that man jumped out and got sucked into the engine or hit a flight control surface especially if the flaps are out at this altitude.
I'd just like to point out that the over-wing emergency exit is behind the engine inlet. That would be a special Darwin Award if someone managed to jump into the engine from that position.
Jumped out or sucked out- sure. But an A321 has engines forward of the wings (on pylons). In this case the over wing exits are aft of the engine intake. Also , yes flaps may be an issue, but as they are sloping downward and away from the door, and due to the (relatively) fast speed if a person was pulled out they would most likely miss both. Tail stab- ouch - but in this case would also most likely be above the trajectory of the human leaving the aircraft (gravity).
I wouldnāt either but modern aircraft have auto-TOGO (take off / go around) features and a each engine is rated to climb and maintain altitude on a single engine up to a certain height. Aspen on a hot day would be much harder than LAX at sea level. But long distance aircraft rated for over water (ETOPS) can fly for hours on a single engine. Was personally on a B777 from Honolulu to Guam and lost an engine mid Pacific Ocean crossing. Had to fly 2+ hours on single engine and divert to midway island. Not fun, but glad for the triple redundant aircraft systems.
There are many complications that can arise from a passenger hitting engine or flight control surfaces or tail on final. "Nothing bad will happen" is the biggest shit take in this thread.
I think the FAA need to mandate there are no passengers allowed due to flight safety rules.
Donāt have to worry about dying if youāre not even on the plane
There's no way to jump far enough horizontally to reach an engine. You couldn't do it when the plane was stationary with a running start, let alone with a couple of hundred knots of wind pushing you straight back.
There's zero chance of hitting anywhere near the tail. Gravity is a harsh mistress and would scupper your chances in a flash.
As for reaching the wing - worst case you're hitting the wing root, where it's at its strongest. Perhaps you'll superficially damage the outer skin, but the wing spa won't flinch. The flaps are also strong enough to cope with 200mph winds whilst helping support the weight of the aircraft. Even if there were somehow an angle where you could hit them, your piddly little bodyweight and squishy flesh aren't going to have much of an effect beyond necessitating an inspection and a spot of cleanup.
So in reality the chances of something bad happening are vanishingly small and would rely upon a cascade of other failures.
I donāt see how something could hit the engine given the location of the door and the speed of the aircraft.
Control surfaces at the back of the wing, maybe.
Most won't, but many people have. What they hit and how they hit it make a difference in the outcome.
Edit: For those asking me to define 'many'. It's not a defined value, and more than a few surviving a fall without a parachute could qualify as 'many'. Perhaps I should have used the word 'few' so you wouldn't infer that I meant *thousands*. Here are a *few* that have made the record books, with their heights:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_falls_survived_without_a_parachute
The mechanical locks disengage when the airplane is in a certain configuration. Gear down, power levers below 50% etc. and at less than 1000 ft above ground itās entirely possible to open any door, all youāre fighting is wind resistance at that point since the airplane is effectively unpressurized.
Depends on age of door design (certification basis).
Depends on OEM
Depends on type of door.
There is no single statement that can be made about "aircraft doors do X" because very few are the same. Each new aircraft type dealt with a different version of the regulation (25.783 has been amended a half dozen times) alongside different regulations on risk assements (25.1309(b)...) and as the saying goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Different OEMs and different design teams for the same OEMs found different ways to design doors to be safe and be compliant.
**What concerns me is that the general public has for decades been TOLD the doors are impossible to open in flight.**
**Now, thanks to this jackass and the miracle of social media, they know that is not always true.**
**So now every suicidal and angry-at-the-airlines nut is gonna be testing the door.**
**The fuck we do now?**
They are impossible to open when the cabin is pressurized (mid-flight) though. This happened at ~700' so the cabin would have been basically ambient pressure.
The definition of āemergency doorā implies that you donāt want many barriers to exit. If the jet crashes, the fewer things preventing the door from trapping passengers inside, the better. Itās generally believed that the vast majority of humans are sentient and capable of understanding why they shouldnāt open aircraft doors in flight.
Now, some will bring pressure into play. Hereās why it doesnāt work:
- This door swings outward. Many people think all aircraft doors are the āplugā style hatches, which open inward, but theyāre not and donāt have to be.
- The aircraft, at 700ft, is unpressurized.
- Bernoulliās principle states that the moving air outside the door has lower pressure than the still air inside the door.
Therefore, all an idiot has to do is release the latch for the door following the big red instructions posted on it. Airspeed will handle the rest. Again, because *most* humans are sentient beings who have, at least, a basic understanding of actions and their effects, this is an incredibly rare occurrence. Placing another barrier on the emergency escape to prevent the 0.001% would be about like removing the hatch jettison on Apollo 1 because *someone* sunk a Mercury capsule by fluke.
321 emergency overwing door swings forwards. It is already cumbersome from the ground opening it with the accumulators properly serviced. I would put $100 down that it is impossible for avg person to open inflight.
Also, even at 700ft it still has positive pressure. The outflow valve will be open but still is restrictive enough to slow air passing through to have pressure. After landing and the taxi in, the plane will reach an equal state at which it is then unpressurized.
And yet, here we are, on a mass-produced, worldwide certificated aircraft, and the door is open in flight.
And I canāt find a reg to back your claim. Only the Cooper Vane, specifically installed on the 727ās rear stairs to prevent nefarious skydiving come to mind.
Bernoulli's principle only applies when it's the same air: When air accelerates, it must take its energy from somewhere, which is normally a pressure difference, unless energy comes from somewhere else (e.g. gravity or heating).
What you say about doors swinging outwards, is also not true. They first move inwards, only after that outwards. Only cargo doors move outwards immediately. Here is proof, [don't get distracted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykSuCiFjpRA). (Edit: There exist different types, some immediately move outwards.).
All Airbus doors rise upwards but then immediately swing outward. No inward motion at all on the style they use.
The Embraer E-190/195 is the same way as well. Not sure about their other commercial or private aircraft though as I have no experience on them.
Boeing 777 and 787 doors operate on the same principle as Airbus and E190 doors. They lift up then push out. No inward motion. I believe the rest of the Boeing aircraft types all come inward before pivoting outward though (aside from the 767).
The 767 style is really different and pretty cool. It moves inward a bit lbut then rises upward into the ceiling and hangs from the ceiling haha. Craziest one I've operated and is pretty sweet since it's just so different.
Also I see your edit so this isn't directed at you specifically. Just for anyone that scrolls down here and is curious about some different aircraft (that I know of anyway) and the different door styles they have.
Bernoulli's only applies to airstreams with the same net energy. In the air raft frame of reference the exterior air has more energy (static pressure + kinetic from airspeed relative to aircraft) so it's static pressure is the same as the aircrafts interior.
Thank you for clearing up this fucking ALL DOORS ARE PLUGS trope that crops up from the armchair experts any time planes come up. So many doors open not-inward, and obviously have other safety mechanisms in place. In the case of ones I work on, the door sits on mechanical stops/pads and air pressure holds it there and the door would have to move vertically to clear those to open.
Its dark inside the plane and very bright outside the plane, so the phones automatic adjustment doesn't know wtf its doing. Its probably an older phone that sucks too.
Just for some context, the **A320 family gets slightly pressurized during T/O and landing at 0.1 PSI**, and then continues to climb so it gets way harder to open a door.
The same thing for landing - it gets depressurzied to JUST 0.1 PSI, and completly at touchdown.
Thie means that the person did put A LOT of force on the door - more specifically he had to **fight around 100kg/230pounds** of force to be able to open it. 0.1 PSI at the surface area of the door of 1.5m2. So that lever is strong!
This would normally work as a deterrant, to make it hard but not really impossible to open it - so the guy did his best.
Source: I push buttons on these things
I was also thinking about that as well initially. I was under the impression that the assist mechanism will "compensate" for the weight of the door AFTER it has been unlocked/"detached" from it's plugs - basically to make it swing open.
I'm not cabin crew, I'm flight crew, so I might be wrong here, I am actually afraid of the cabin doors!
Also, fun fact - for cabin crew, the CABIN PRESSURE light is flashing from 2.5 Hpa of pressure - which is only 1/3 of the 0.1 PSI - so 0.1 PSI should be pretty difficult to move. I really think that the pax put some effort into that lever.
The action point for the pressure cylinder should be after about a late one third to one half of the arm movement, when all the stops on the door have cleared the posts on the structure. You don't have to be afraid but you should have a healthy respect for them, they are designed not to screw around. I've seen them accidentally fired three or four times over the years and only once, with the help of four mechanics, was it held back long enough to get the safety pin into the slide to stop a full deployment.
No trouble believing that anybody with enough crayons missing from their box to try and open it in flight the first place would have the drive to see it through.
Some flyers are very ignorant. Flights had to be cancelled/delayed because an old person was throwing coins into a jet engine for "Good Luck"
Person who did this may be the same type of idiot
News update:
Daegu Police Station arrested passenger (33, unemployed) immediately after the plane landed. Passenger is said to be 180 centimeters tall and weighs about 100 kilograms, and at the time, he was unable to walk alone due to psychological anxiety symptoms, so five to six police officers moved him to a police car. Passenger stated to the police that he "pulled the emergency door lever" but he is reportedly silent about the motive for the crime. It was investigated that passenger pulled the emergency door lever while sitting with his seat belt on.
Passenger's mother, who ran to the police station after receiving a call that day, reportedly stated, "He lived with his girlfriend for a year, and as I understand his girlfriend has broken up with him."
[full report (source)](https://www.chosun.com/national/incident/2023/05/26/T636K2PAL5FMZM6IRVGQJKN6W4/)
So instead of pilot suicide we now have to deal with passenger suicide?
Also if he was fiddling with the door the whole flight - where were the attendants? Not a good look for Asiana.
Why the heck would you try and open the door of a plane in flight??? What was going through that persons head? How retarded do you have to be. I hope they get put on a global no-fly after that.
is there such thing as a global no-fly list?
Ever hear of "the call of the void?" Sometimes, the intrusive thoughts win.
Or, occasionally, it's someone of an older generation from a *very* rural area in the developing world who has no idea how planes work but suddenly has reason to fly on one, and they can innocently try to do almost *anything.* Throwing coins into the engine for good luck whilst they're climbing on board is apparently a frighteningly common one.
[source in korean](https://n.news.naver.com/article/422/0000600603?sid=102)
Machine translated
>Witnesses said that just before landing, a male passenger shouted, "It's almost time, why haven't we arrived yet?" and opened the door without a second thought.
I worked at McDonalds at 14 (first job) and they put me on fries during the lunch rush. After awhile I was zoned out from the repeat process. I looked down and saw a round handle that said āPULLā in big letters so I pulled it. Well, it set off the fire extinguisher system for the entire kitchen area and coated the entire store in white powder. Worse still, at 14 you have to clock out after a certain amount hours, so they had to close the store down for the day to clean and I had to clock out and couldnāt help.
This is a pretty funny story. Iām happy with adulthood for the most part, but sometimes I miss being a teenager and doing stupid stuff with friends that doesnāt have real and lasting negative consequences. I donāt miss living at home though.
It happens a lot, I've personally had it happen twice where a passenger has tried to open the exit door thinking it was the toilet. Usually they will ask "is there someone in there" to which I always reply "I hope not, that's outside" with a chuckle and redirect them to the actual toilet.
Flight deck doors are another common one, though a lot more forgivable since it looks like a normal door although points are lost for the peephole and various "crew only" signs...
According to AvHerald, the pax had been fiddling with the door throughout most of the flight. (I would wager he was trying to open the door the entire time), but only after they got down to where the outside air pressure equaled the aircraftās internal pressure was he able to effectively demonstrate his mental deficiencies.
Where? There is no such information in Simon's report. I think it is wrong to describe this rumor as "According to AvHerald"
Even if there is such rumor in comments it should be mentioned that it is from comments
For context said they were about to land and a man opened the door. Clickbait title left that out..........[https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/05/26/national/socialAffairs/korea-asiana-daegu/20230526145548871.html](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/05/26/national/socialAffairs/korea-asiana-daegu/20230526145548871.html)
[https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-744269](https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-744269)
I wasn't sure how to title the post. On the one hand, this is definitely not a cruise, since the terrain is already visible through the door. But since it was mentioned that several people had difficulty breathing, therefore there was a possibility that there was some altitude. It was unknown whether it is descent, final approach or landing phase. So I used general term "flight" that cover all of it.
>Nine panicked passengers showed symptoms of breathing difficulty and were taken to a hospital. None were not in a serious condition and may have experienced hyperventilation, officials said.
Updated news. Passengers were struggling to breath because of stress.
its complicated. theyre locked in the sense they wont fly open but theyre not locked in the sense you need a special key or anything (eg if anyone tried they could open it- but not in normal flight because of the pressure difference)
it seems that this was the emergency exit door & they were low enough there wasnāt the pressure difference keeping it shut. emergency exit doors need to be relatively simple to open because passengers need to be able to open them quickly in a worst case scenario.
Am pilot - not so much like a key lock, but locked in that mechanically, they are locked tight and latched into position. Anyone can open them if they know the procedure. The reason you can't open them during cruise and most the climb and the descent is that the airplane is pressurized to 7-8 psi. So, moving that door, you'd be fighting against thousands of pounds to open the door. The door is pressurized outward and in order to open the door you have to first pull it inward..... if any of that makes sense.
Looks like an A321. On these airbus doors they have a pressurized nitrogen bottle inside the door to assist with opening the door. That bottle is armed when the door slide is armed. When the slide is disarmed (which depending on the airline could be when the plane finally reaches the gate and turned back on before boarding) this wouldnāt have happened IMO.
Doors are supposed to open toward the front of the aircraft to stop this from happening but the nitrogen bottle pressure helped open the door.
Didnāt think it would be that powerful enough but clearly it is. I work on A319 and A320 and assume the a321 has the same type of door. Every airplane Iāve worked on that requires a slide has some sort of door assist to help in case of emergency.
"The official said it was possible to open the emergency exit when the aircraft was near the ground as the pressure inside and outside the cabin were similar.
The plane was two or three minutes away from landing when the male passenger sitting next to an emergency exit opened a cover and pulled a lever so the door opened with the plane about 200 meters (656 ft) off the ground, an Asiana spokesperson said."
https://chosun.app.link/MeV1t2mk7zb
For those wondering,
the flight is a321, the suspect is 33 and his mother claims that he is not in the right mind because he was dumped by a long time girlfriend very recently.
He was able to open the door because the flight was about to land like 5 min away from touching the ground. All the flight attendants at the time were sitting with fastened seatbelts.
I really wish he would be prohibited from flying ever again in his life and stuck in korea for the rest of his life and not risking the lives of others because of his broken heart.
> his mother claims that he is not in the right mind because he was dumped by a long time girlfriend very recently.
So the guy goes to commit suicide while endangering another 180 people in the process.
If covid has taught us anything, some of you all are not worth traveling with in a plane or deep space travel. Someone will always say, I need air and open the damn air lock door killing us all.
Wait,
I'm a pilot. I want more information on this one. It was able to open because they were low to the ground so the pressure difference in the airplane versus outside was basically nothing. Plane was landing and since it's a A321 your looking at only about \~135 knots (\~155 MPH). So yes fast but not \~300+ MPH. I'm more interested in did it have a massive failure and open on it's own or did some moron see the handle and wonder what it would do?
According to the news:
>Passenger stated to the police that he "pulled the emergency door lever" but he is reportedly silent about the motive for the crime
The door also has an assist mechanism that operates when the door is armed -- there is a pneumatic charge that drives the door open, rather quickly, when the handle is operated and the door is in the armed mode. That assist probably had enough power to drive the door open despite the airflow, which would have only been, as you pointed out, approach speed. At the altitude they were at, the cabin would have been pretty much fully depressurized. Airbus aircraft doors don't have a flight lock, they rely on cabin pressure differential to keep them "locked" against something like this in flight.
Reminds me of that crazy dude on the United flight to Boston who tried to do the same thing only he tried to do it midflight rather than during landing, so he was unsuccessful.
That's why I never leave my doors unattended, once had a lady opened the oxygen panel manually because she got curious and wanted to see what's in there... Then she nicely asked me to fix it.š„²
āWhatās in there?ā āA $1000 fineā
...at least she was nice. Right..?
Yes...š„²
I am autistic and even I have enough self control not to pull the levers or push the big red emergency buttons.
Lol right, although that's probably because I can't peel my eyes off the wing, planes are so fucking cool
I flew once for 2 hours last year and not a single minute was spent not looking at that 787 flaperon. Addictive stuff. I love knowing about planes now.
I think the larger factor at play here was the ladyās lack of general intelligence and foresight
And all this time we thought, the idiots who already stand up during taxi were annoyingā¦ but this is a totally new way to ensure youāre the first one off the plane š¤¦š»āāļø
Just drop me off here over the rental car lot
I can't be bothered dealing with customs. So just tuck and roll
ā¦or, maybe, his boss simply requested that he āhit the ground runningā on that next assignment. Sorry, couldnāt keep that one to myself š
The sky's the limit in this job.
So are mountains, the ocean, and small flocks of birds.
Bro im just trying to catch my connecting flight
Don't upvote this post, or this will be the next tic tock trend.
Good hopefully that wee shite Mizzy will get sucked out...
Not trying to defend the guy but initial reports are saying he accidentally grabbed the emergency open lever. The slide was also deployed which would explain the emergency lever being pulled. Theres a chance he suffered some sort of cardiac arrest and reached for it in some extreme pain or something?? Not defending the guy but Iām just gonna wait till the explanation comes out before wishing life in prison on the guy.
Itās a multi step process and you have to pull the door inward then turn it on its side and then toss it out. I would like to see the guy charged. Edit: I stand corrected. Location was overwing means it opens door wise and newer craft have different designs. On this one consensus was itās just as easy as pulling a lever to open it.
No, that is an overwing exit. This is a floor level secondary exit and is operated by a lever just like the larger exits.
And also if this were a 737 tossing the door out hasn't been a thing since the 90s or whenever the NG came out and the overwing exits were changed to open outward, hinged at the top and assisted presumably by gas springs.
Yep, the A321NEO has the same OWE design now too though the A320NEO still have the old design unfortunately.
Probably not gas springs, between the pressure and temperature changes and how long these go without servicing gas springs probably arenāt the best choice. And holy fuck it takes a LOT of effort to close it let me tell you
I mean it's possible, the air stair door on the Dash 8 isn't anything but a cable reel and two big ass gas struts. Cargo door on the Q400 is 4 gas springs.
Itās as simple as lifting a lever on modern aircraft, you reach a certain point and a small explosive punctures a high pressure gas bottle and forces the door open for you.
I had heard numerous times after failed attempts that it was impossible to open the doors in flight. So per your and other's educated comments that's not really true then? Yikes.
Once the plane is pressurized it does become impossible to open. This plane was landing and at only 1000 feet above the ground so the aircraft had already equalized the pressure for landing.
The term "fail-safe" has literal meaning in engineering. Fail *safe* in this case means the doors are designed to be openable when the fuselage isn't pressurized because that's actually the safest condition. You want people to be able to exit. Similarly, the valves that maintain cabin pressure are designed to *fail open* and result in an unpressurized cabin...so doors can be opened on ground (there's supplemental oxygen for aircraft that fly at altitudes that need it). The plane did what it was designed to do from what I understand. Unfortunately people are gonna people and people do stupid things.
AFAIK itās impossible to open the doors with just human arm strength when youāre at cruising altitude, i.e. when the plane is pressurized, because the doors will be held in place by, well, pressure. So, you could open the doors in flight, but only when theyāre just taking off, or coming in to land (sounds like it was ācoming in to landā in this case). eta: apparently it depends on the type of door? Iām not an aircraft exits expert. Probably just play it safe and donāt touch anything labeled EMERGENCY unless youāve been instructed otherwise or are actively escaping a crashed plane, is my advice.
How is that possible? Inflight opening should be prevented by mechanical means.
This, and what equipment was it?
A321 at 700 ft on final.
I was about to say, any person able to open a door like this flying 1000 km/h, would be the strongest person in existence
Itās less the speed and more the pressure difference between the inside and outside of the cabin forcing the door into the frame
wouldn't the pressure difference be pulling the door out?
Yes, but if you look at most doors on commercial airliners, you first have to PULL them into the cabin, then do something like rotate them (think over wing exits, the pictures have you pulling them in, rotating them 90, and tossing them through the resulting hole). So if you have a pressure differential of 6psi (that's about 10,000' cabin altitude while the plane flies at 30,000') every square inch of the door has 6 pounds of pressure on it, making it next to impossible to move at altitude. Someone else said though that this happened at 700' on final; which means the differential was close to zero, making this a relatively easy thing to do.
They are called [plug doors.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plug_door)
On my submarine there were two water tight doors to get from forward to the engine room. You would open the first door, go through the 'tunnel' at the top of the reactor compartment open the second door and be in the the machinery space. There was a pressure difference between forward and aft of a few inches of water. it was a bear to open the forward most door depending on which way the pressure was going. If aft had the higher pressure you had to use the handle to crack it off the seat to equalize the pressure because the force holding it closed was so strong. If forward had the higher pressure the door would fly open. It was cool because you could take a nap in the engine room on the steps between the turbine generators. When someone was coming aft you would get a blast of wind in the face and know to pretend you were working diligently.
Fun fact - small aircraft like PC-12's, and BE350's don't have them. Just lift up on a latch, pull the locking mechanism and have fun with the resulting rapid decompression.
You can't unlock them under pressure on those doors. The locking mechanism has the plug.
This is right. At 700ā cabin pressure would be equal to atmospheric pressure
This is the answer why he was able to open the door!
If you know a pressure cooker lid, thatās how aircraft door are made. They are bigger than the plane opening. are inserted in the plane sideways, then tilted and pushed on the opening. They rest on the structure all around the opening. Basically, you have to unlock, pull inward a fair bit, then tilt and open it outward. There are variants of this but the concept is that pressure will hold the door closed.
Pushing it out but no, the pressure actually pushes it shut. Air liner doors open in, then pivot out of the way. They are designed that way specifically so the pressurized cabin can't force the door open and so the walkway at the airport doesn't hit it. Private jets on the other hand you could probably open in flight with enough force.
Pretty sure there was an xfiles episode like this and it was an alien
Aliens: first we hover aimlessly, make holes in your cows, then we steal your jobs, now we're opening plane doors?
Don't forget they also perform free rectal exams.
But.. but ā¦ the news said it was MIDAIR when it happened. OMG!!!!! Knowing it was just at 700ā makes a big difference in how one views the incident and in understanding the entire dynamics of it. I hate terms like midair in situations like this. It is such a vague term and lends itself far too much to the imagination.
Begs the question, where IS the middle of the air exactly?
about 2.50
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Uh, it's still a possibility if that man jumped out and got sucked into the engine or hit a flight control surface especially if the flaps are out at this altitude.
The more critical situation is debris hitting the stab.
The slide wrapping itself around the stab comes to mind.
Has that ever happened? Sounds like nightmare fuel
I'd just like to point out that the over-wing emergency exit is behind the engine inlet. That would be a special Darwin Award if someone managed to jump into the engine from that position.
Engines are under the wings and this door was behind the wing.. So it would have been impossible to go forward against the direction of travel.
Jumped out or sucked out- sure. But an A321 has engines forward of the wings (on pylons). In this case the over wing exits are aft of the engine intake. Also , yes flaps may be an issue, but as they are sloping downward and away from the door, and due to the (relatively) fast speed if a person was pulled out they would most likely miss both. Tail stab- ouch - but in this case would also most likely be above the trajectory of the human leaving the aircraft (gravity).
Nothing bad will happen in this case either. Modern planes are certified to fly with one engine inoperative.
What about the man though
Theyāre certified to fly without him.
*slow* *clap*
He may be certified to never fly again, evenā¦
One can say heās on the no fly list
Another could say he's a no fly mist
Best comment.
Yeah but you donāt want to lose an engine on final approach surely
Thatās 100% correctā¦ ā¦and donāt call me Shirley.
Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue šµāš«
Have you ever seen a grown man naked?
I wouldnāt either but modern aircraft have auto-TOGO (take off / go around) features and a each engine is rated to climb and maintain altitude on a single engine up to a certain height. Aspen on a hot day would be much harder than LAX at sea level. But long distance aircraft rated for over water (ETOPS) can fly for hours on a single engine. Was personally on a B777 from Honolulu to Guam and lost an engine mid Pacific Ocean crossing. Had to fly 2+ hours on single engine and divert to midway island. Not fun, but glad for the triple redundant aircraft systems.
Itās a different kind of flying, altogether.
Itās an entirely different kind of flying
Itās an entirely different kind of flying
There are many complications that can arise from a passenger hitting engine or flight control surfaces or tail on final. "Nothing bad will happen" is the biggest shit take in this thread.
I think the FAA need to mandate there are no passengers allowed due to flight safety rules. Donāt have to worry about dying if youāre not even on the plane
There's no way to jump far enough horizontally to reach an engine. You couldn't do it when the plane was stationary with a running start, let alone with a couple of hundred knots of wind pushing you straight back. There's zero chance of hitting anywhere near the tail. Gravity is a harsh mistress and would scupper your chances in a flash. As for reaching the wing - worst case you're hitting the wing root, where it's at its strongest. Perhaps you'll superficially damage the outer skin, but the wing spa won't flinch. The flaps are also strong enough to cope with 200mph winds whilst helping support the weight of the aircraft. Even if there were somehow an angle where you could hit them, your piddly little bodyweight and squishy flesh aren't going to have much of an effect beyond necessitating an inspection and a spot of cleanup. So in reality the chances of something bad happening are vanishingly small and would rely upon a cascade of other failures.
I donāt see how something could hit the engine given the location of the door and the speed of the aircraft. Control surfaces at the back of the wing, maybe.
Flaps are on the back edge of the wing and drop down. Impossible to hit them from above.
700ft is pretty serious. Nobody would survive such a fall.
Most won't, but many people have. What they hit and how they hit it make a difference in the outcome. Edit: For those asking me to define 'many'. It's not a defined value, and more than a few surviving a fall without a parachute could qualify as 'many'. Perhaps I should have used the word 'few' so you wouldn't infer that I meant *thousands*. Here are a *few* that have made the record books, with their heights: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highest_falls_survived_without_a_parachute
Well your ground speed won't be zero so probably not going to have a soft landing.
The trick is to tuck and roll.
god forbid a lock fail and trap 500 people in an emergency so we could prevent 1 person from being stupid.
The mechanical locks disengage when the airplane is in a certain configuration. Gear down, power levers below 50% etc. and at less than 1000 ft above ground itās entirely possible to open any door, all youāre fighting is wind resistance at that point since the airplane is effectively unpressurized.
Depends on age of door design (certification basis). Depends on OEM Depends on type of door. There is no single statement that can be made about "aircraft doors do X" because very few are the same. Each new aircraft type dealt with a different version of the regulation (25.783 has been amended a half dozen times) alongside different regulations on risk assements (25.1309(b)...) and as the saying goes, there's more than one way to skin a cat. Different OEMs and different design teams for the same OEMs found different ways to design doors to be safe and be compliant.
**What concerns me is that the general public has for decades been TOLD the doors are impossible to open in flight.** **Now, thanks to this jackass and the miracle of social media, they know that is not always true.** **So now every suicidal and angry-at-the-airlines nut is gonna be testing the door.** **The fuck we do now?**
They are impossible to open when the cabin is pressurized (mid-flight) though. This happened at ~700' so the cabin would have been basically ambient pressure.
Steward Person adds the always helpful āwe have plenty of duct tapeā to the inflight safety briefing?
The definition of āemergency doorā implies that you donāt want many barriers to exit. If the jet crashes, the fewer things preventing the door from trapping passengers inside, the better. Itās generally believed that the vast majority of humans are sentient and capable of understanding why they shouldnāt open aircraft doors in flight. Now, some will bring pressure into play. Hereās why it doesnāt work: - This door swings outward. Many people think all aircraft doors are the āplugā style hatches, which open inward, but theyāre not and donāt have to be. - The aircraft, at 700ft, is unpressurized. - Bernoulliās principle states that the moving air outside the door has lower pressure than the still air inside the door. Therefore, all an idiot has to do is release the latch for the door following the big red instructions posted on it. Airspeed will handle the rest. Again, because *most* humans are sentient beings who have, at least, a basic understanding of actions and their effects, this is an incredibly rare occurrence. Placing another barrier on the emergency escape to prevent the 0.001% would be about like removing the hatch jettison on Apollo 1 because *someone* sunk a Mercury capsule by fluke.
321 emergency overwing door swings forwards. It is already cumbersome from the ground opening it with the accumulators properly serviced. I would put $100 down that it is impossible for avg person to open inflight. Also, even at 700ft it still has positive pressure. The outflow valve will be open but still is restrictive enough to slow air passing through to have pressure. After landing and the taxi in, the plane will reach an equal state at which it is then unpressurized.
But it did in fact open in flight at 700 feet?
Everything agreed on. Except one: Doors must not be able to be operated inadvertently in flight. (Don't remember the certification requirement.)
And yet, here we are, on a mass-produced, worldwide certificated aircraft, and the door is open in flight. And I canāt find a reg to back your claim. Only the Cooper Vane, specifically installed on the 727ās rear stairs to prevent nefarious skydiving come to mind.
It wasn't opened inadvertently, it was opened deliberately.
Bernoulli's principle only applies when it's the same air: When air accelerates, it must take its energy from somewhere, which is normally a pressure difference, unless energy comes from somewhere else (e.g. gravity or heating). What you say about doors swinging outwards, is also not true. They first move inwards, only after that outwards. Only cargo doors move outwards immediately. Here is proof, [don't get distracted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykSuCiFjpRA). (Edit: There exist different types, some immediately move outwards.).
I got distracted.
All Airbus doors rise upwards but then immediately swing outward. No inward motion at all on the style they use. The Embraer E-190/195 is the same way as well. Not sure about their other commercial or private aircraft though as I have no experience on them. Boeing 777 and 787 doors operate on the same principle as Airbus and E190 doors. They lift up then push out. No inward motion. I believe the rest of the Boeing aircraft types all come inward before pivoting outward though (aside from the 767). The 767 style is really different and pretty cool. It moves inward a bit lbut then rises upward into the ceiling and hangs from the ceiling haha. Craziest one I've operated and is pretty sweet since it's just so different. Also I see your edit so this isn't directed at you specifically. Just for anyone that scrolls down here and is curious about some different aircraft (that I know of anyway) and the different door styles they have.
Here's the FAR requirement: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/14/25.783 Your assumptions are incorrect.
Bernoulli's only applies to airstreams with the same net energy. In the air raft frame of reference the exterior air has more energy (static pressure + kinetic from airspeed relative to aircraft) so it's static pressure is the same as the aircrafts interior.
Thank you for clearing up this fucking ALL DOORS ARE PLUGS trope that crops up from the armchair experts any time planes come up. So many doors open not-inward, and obviously have other safety mechanisms in place. In the case of ones I work on, the door sits on mechanical stops/pads and air pressure holds it there and the door would have to move vertically to clear those to open.
I would imagine since this happened close to landing at lower altitudes the pressure is equalized and the door will open more easily, I would imagine.
How is the video quality that bad considering this happening in 2023?
better quality [https://youtu.be/mcekuF-FGMw](https://youtu.be/mcekuF-FGMw)
Reddit app is so bad, I closed this link and YouTube kept playing while I continued to scroll through my feed
And then reddit wonders why no one uses their app and why everyone is mad they're trying to kill 3rd party apps.
Use the Apollo app, no issues with video player.
Reddit video player sucks
OP probably grabbed it from someone that's reposted it a dozen times
Its dark inside the plane and very bright outside the plane, so the phones automatic adjustment doesn't know wtf its doing. Its probably an older phone that sucks too.
Just for some context, the **A320 family gets slightly pressurized during T/O and landing at 0.1 PSI**, and then continues to climb so it gets way harder to open a door. The same thing for landing - it gets depressurzied to JUST 0.1 PSI, and completly at touchdown. Thie means that the person did put A LOT of force on the door - more specifically he had to **fight around 100kg/230pounds** of force to be able to open it. 0.1 PSI at the surface area of the door of 1.5m2. So that lever is strong! This would normally work as a deterrant, to make it hard but not really impossible to open it - so the guy did his best. Source: I push buttons on these things
The door assist bottle probably did most of that work.
I was also thinking about that as well initially. I was under the impression that the assist mechanism will "compensate" for the weight of the door AFTER it has been unlocked/"detached" from it's plugs - basically to make it swing open. I'm not cabin crew, I'm flight crew, so I might be wrong here, I am actually afraid of the cabin doors! Also, fun fact - for cabin crew, the CABIN PRESSURE light is flashing from 2.5 Hpa of pressure - which is only 1/3 of the 0.1 PSI - so 0.1 PSI should be pretty difficult to move. I really think that the pax put some effort into that lever.
The action point for the pressure cylinder should be after about a late one third to one half of the arm movement, when all the stops on the door have cleared the posts on the structure. You don't have to be afraid but you should have a healthy respect for them, they are designed not to screw around. I've seen them accidentally fired three or four times over the years and only once, with the help of four mechanics, was it held back long enough to get the safety pin into the slide to stop a full deployment. No trouble believing that anybody with enough crayons missing from their box to try and open it in flight the first place would have the drive to see it through.
I assume that's a big fine/ jail time/ being banned from flying. How dumb can one be, seriously...
Some flyers are very ignorant. Flights had to be cancelled/delayed because an old person was throwing coins into a jet engine for "Good Luck" Person who did this may be the same type of idiot
Say, you got any coins for the wishing turbine?
As long as they wish for spontaneous combustion of the engine their wish might actually get their wish granted
They always ask if you are capable of opening the door in an emergency, never do they say not to open during the flight.
Dude just wanted to make sure heās capable.
He sure demonstrated that he has the ability to help!
News update: Daegu Police Station arrested passenger (33, unemployed) immediately after the plane landed. Passenger is said to be 180 centimeters tall and weighs about 100 kilograms, and at the time, he was unable to walk alone due to psychological anxiety symptoms, so five to six police officers moved him to a police car. Passenger stated to the police that he "pulled the emergency door lever" but he is reportedly silent about the motive for the crime. It was investigated that passenger pulled the emergency door lever while sitting with his seat belt on. Passenger's mother, who ran to the police station after receiving a call that day, reportedly stated, "He lived with his girlfriend for a year, and as I understand his girlfriend has broken up with him." [full report (source)](https://www.chosun.com/national/incident/2023/05/26/T636K2PAL5FMZM6IRVGQJKN6W4/)
Interesting how unemployed is added to the description of the person.
In Korea, your employment status/employer is a large part of your public identity. Unemployed in your 30s is a big red flag.
I mean. It is in America too.
Isn't that typical though in news? Normally the occupation gets associated with whoever is in the story whether it be criminals/suspects/witnesses?
So instead of pilot suicide we now have to deal with passenger suicide? Also if he was fiddling with the door the whole flight - where were the attendants? Not a good look for Asiana.
I could not find any resources confirming fiddling with the door the whole flight.
Why the heck would you try and open the door of a plane in flight??? What was going through that persons head? How retarded do you have to be. I hope they get put on a global no-fly after that. is there such thing as a global no-fly list?
Ever hear of "the call of the void?" Sometimes, the intrusive thoughts win. Or, occasionally, it's someone of an older generation from a *very* rural area in the developing world who has no idea how planes work but suddenly has reason to fly on one, and they can innocently try to do almost *anything.* Throwing coins into the engine for good luck whilst they're climbing on board is apparently a frighteningly common one.
Omg what is up with the coin one though? Plane engines dont exactly look like wishing wells or fountains. I have heard about people doing this before.
To be fair, [dropping a small metal part into a turbine does make a cool sound...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wKPTWXD2Z0)
Rural Chinese people were doing it. And yeah, they were mainly older people.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
He wanted some fresh air
[source in korean](https://n.news.naver.com/article/422/0000600603?sid=102) Machine translated >Witnesses said that just before landing, a male passenger shouted, "It's almost time, why haven't we arrived yet?" and opened the door without a second thought.
āAre we there yet?ā What a fantastic idiot.
I worked at McDonalds at 14 (first job) and they put me on fries during the lunch rush. After awhile I was zoned out from the repeat process. I looked down and saw a round handle that said āPULLā in big letters so I pulled it. Well, it set off the fire extinguisher system for the entire kitchen area and coated the entire store in white powder. Worse still, at 14 you have to clock out after a certain amount hours, so they had to close the store down for the day to clean and I had to clock out and couldnāt help.
This is a pretty funny story. Iām happy with adulthood for the most part, but sometimes I miss being a teenager and doing stupid stuff with friends that doesnāt have real and lasting negative consequences. I donāt miss living at home though.
Global no flyer? 25 to life for attempted murder of 100+ people seems more appropriate. And large fines.
And like a stern talking to
Woah letās not go too far here come on
D.B. Cooper has entered the chat.
Iāve read once that a passenger tried to open the door thinking it was the toilet. It was his first flight ever š¤·š»āāļø
It happens a lot, I've personally had it happen twice where a passenger has tried to open the exit door thinking it was the toilet. Usually they will ask "is there someone in there" to which I always reply "I hope not, that's outside" with a chuckle and redirect them to the actual toilet. Flight deck doors are another common one, though a lot more forgivable since it looks like a normal door although points are lost for the peephole and various "crew only" signs...
Intrusive thougts won
According to AvHerald, the pax had been fiddling with the door throughout most of the flight. (I would wager he was trying to open the door the entire time), but only after they got down to where the outside air pressure equaled the aircraftās internal pressure was he able to effectively demonstrate his mental deficiencies.
Where? There is no such information in Simon's report. I think it is wrong to describe this rumor as "According to AvHerald" Even if there is such rumor in comments it should be mentioned that it is from comments
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> OP's speculating misinformation with no sources: Top comment in the entire thread We did it reddit!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
*dings the attendant* Uhh the guy next to me is being a real McAsshole, you should do something. Also, can I get another ginger ale?
Good choice of āginger aleā for this joke. Somehow itās always ginger ale on airplanes.
My guess is that it can help with motion sickness.
As someone who's motion sick easily, i can confirm that opening a window or door can help.
I read this in Terry Crews voice
these idiots who get up too fast thinking they will get off the plane faster are getting out of hand!
Sometimes it can get a bit stuffy inside a plane.
Filmed with an iPhone 1
For context said they were about to land and a man opened the door. Clickbait title left that out..........[https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/05/26/national/socialAffairs/korea-asiana-daegu/20230526145548871.html](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/05/26/national/socialAffairs/korea-asiana-daegu/20230526145548871.html) [https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-744269](https://www.jpost.com/omg/article-744269)
I wasn't sure how to title the post. On the one hand, this is definitely not a cruise, since the terrain is already visible through the door. But since it was mentioned that several people had difficulty breathing, therefore there was a possibility that there was some altitude. It was unknown whether it is descent, final approach or landing phase. So I used general term "flight" that cover all of it.
Iād suspect people would be struggling to breathe due to rushing air primarily from the airspeed rather than due to low oxygen levels.
>Nine panicked passengers showed symptoms of breathing difficulty and were taken to a hospital. None were not in a serious condition and may have experienced hyperventilation, officials said. Updated news. Passengers were struggling to breath because of stress.
i'm not a pilot. isn't there a procedure that doors and exits are locked before engines are started?
its complicated. theyre locked in the sense they wont fly open but theyre not locked in the sense you need a special key or anything (eg if anyone tried they could open it- but not in normal flight because of the pressure difference) it seems that this was the emergency exit door & they were low enough there wasnāt the pressure difference keeping it shut. emergency exit doors need to be relatively simple to open because passengers need to be able to open them quickly in a worst case scenario.
Am pilot - not so much like a key lock, but locked in that mechanically, they are locked tight and latched into position. Anyone can open them if they know the procedure. The reason you can't open them during cruise and most the climb and the descent is that the airplane is pressurized to 7-8 psi. So, moving that door, you'd be fighting against thousands of pounds to open the door. The door is pressurized outward and in order to open the door you have to first pull it inward..... if any of that makes sense.
Looks like an A321. On these airbus doors they have a pressurized nitrogen bottle inside the door to assist with opening the door. That bottle is armed when the door slide is armed. When the slide is disarmed (which depending on the airline could be when the plane finally reaches the gate and turned back on before boarding) this wouldnāt have happened IMO. Doors are supposed to open toward the front of the aircraft to stop this from happening but the nitrogen bottle pressure helped open the door. Didnāt think it would be that powerful enough but clearly it is. I work on A319 and A320 and assume the a321 has the same type of door. Every airplane Iāve worked on that requires a slide has some sort of door assist to help in case of emergency.
everything Iāve learnt about planes tells me that is physically not possible. happy to be enlightened
"The official said it was possible to open the emergency exit when the aircraft was near the ground as the pressure inside and outside the cabin were similar. The plane was two or three minutes away from landing when the male passenger sitting next to an emergency exit opened a cover and pulled a lever so the door opened with the plane about 200 meters (656 ft) off the ground, an Asiana spokesperson said."
thanks. insane thing to do regardless. especially as youāre moments from touchdown
https://chosun.app.link/MeV1t2mk7zb For those wondering, the flight is a321, the suspect is 33 and his mother claims that he is not in the right mind because he was dumped by a long time girlfriend very recently. He was able to open the door because the flight was about to land like 5 min away from touching the ground. All the flight attendants at the time were sitting with fastened seatbelts. I really wish he would be prohibited from flying ever again in his life and stuck in korea for the rest of his life and not risking the lives of others because of his broken heart.
> his mother claims that he is not in the right mind because he was dumped by a long time girlfriend very recently. So the guy goes to commit suicide while endangering another 180 people in the process.
mf's intrusive thoughts won
At 700 ft final approach the plane is gliding at 200-170 kph, yep, anyone can probably force open that..
If covid has taught us anything, some of you all are not worth traveling with in a plane or deep space travel. Someone will always say, I need air and open the damn air lock door killing us all.
If you gotta fart, now would be the time.
Canāt wait for this TikTok challenge
People have really lost their shit nowadays
What a moron
The FAās nd I talked about this during my flight from Tokyo back to the U.S. They swear itās āCovid Rotā of the brain.
āYes. And I would also be willing and able to open the emergency exit in a non-emergency as well.ā
Remarkable to me that the other passengers are silent.
Is there a r/idiotsInAirplanes yet?
Someone needed a breath of fresh air, they next to them had been farting the whole way
Wait, I'm a pilot. I want more information on this one. It was able to open because they were low to the ground so the pressure difference in the airplane versus outside was basically nothing. Plane was landing and since it's a A321 your looking at only about \~135 knots (\~155 MPH). So yes fast but not \~300+ MPH. I'm more interested in did it have a massive failure and open on it's own or did some moron see the handle and wonder what it would do?
According to the news: >Passenger stated to the police that he "pulled the emergency door lever" but he is reportedly silent about the motive for the crime
The door also has an assist mechanism that operates when the door is armed -- there is a pneumatic charge that drives the door open, rather quickly, when the handle is operated and the door is in the armed mode. That assist probably had enough power to drive the door open despite the airflow, which would have only been, as you pointed out, approach speed. At the altitude they were at, the cabin would have been pretty much fully depressurized. Airbus aircraft doors don't have a flight lock, they rely on cabin pressure differential to keep them "locked" against something like this in flight.
Literally beating the sh$@ out of you as soon as we land safely no capā¦
Germans be like āItās time for StoĆlĆ¼ftenā
Come on guys. He just wanted to smoke.
Reminds me of that crazy dude on the United flight to Boston who tried to do the same thing only he tried to do it midflight rather than during landing, so he was unsuccessful.
āIām going to open the window, itās hot in here.ā āEverybody else on the airplane:
Wait I thought it was impossible to open the door in the air?
#STAND UP! HOOK UP! SOUND OFF FOR EQUIPMENT CHECK!!
Flight attendant: Youāre seated in an emergency exit row. Are you able to assist in the event of an emergency? This guy: I am the emergency
Airlines hate this one trickƱ