Passenger attempts to open plane exit door mid flight!
 

This is frightening!! http://tinyurl.com/ga2ml

Frightening, in that the guy sounds like a serious nutjob.

Nothing to worry about otherwise-- it's basically impossible to open a plane's exit door during flight.

Still.... Some people are seriously in need of therapy/meds out there!

some people are just nuts

I guess this is something they can't screen for..

Scary.

Soon, they'll need to install another sort of barrier between the door and the lavatory that only the flight crews can unlock.

Before terrorism, there were always the random domestic crazies.. and with the side effects of certain meds, no telling what "the normal looking people" are capable of.

My first trip post 9-11, I remember looking around the waiting area doing the visual check of everyone else on my flight, and mentally deciding who I could "take" if necessary.
My kids took karate at that time, and I decided I could do some modified mom moves from observing their practices, and no one was going to stop ME from getting from A to B.
No one has tested me yet, but I'd be one of the first to jump in!

Can't screen for jackass.

On our flight back from Costa Rica a couple of years ago there were 4 Iranian men on our flight.

We were in first class (nice of my sister to upgrade us too!) and we were ALL prepared to do something if they tried to make it up to first class.
We had to exit the plane with our passports open to our pictures - there were 3 armed guards as we exited the plane.
We flew into Atlanta International - and by the time we had circled for 1.5 hours (supposedly for weather) we were the ONLY flignt in the entire international wing.
Weird and scary.

I wonder if anyone risked tackling the passenger and getting sucked out of the plane if the door opened?

Let's go over it again:

ONCE THE PLANE IS PRESSURIZED AND MOVING, YOU CAN'T OPEN THE DOORS.

Almost all passenger airliners utilize "plug" doors; cabin pressure forces the door shut against the fuselage. Physics prevent the doors from opening like they do on the ground. When the plane is on the ground, the cabin is depressurized and locks released to allow the doors to open.

That doesn't mean that a plane's plug doors might not blow out due to metal fatigue-- but that's a fuselage problem.

On a very few plane models (747, DC-10/MD-11), key doors are not "plug" types, and they are carefully latched and locked with heavy, hydraulically-controlled lock-and-latch mechanisms. In those cases, cabin crew have to release the locks, and there are overrides that prevent them from being unlatched when the plane is pressurized.

Note that opening the door on a pressurized plane on the ground is HIGHLY dangerous as well; a few years ago, a flight attendant was killed when he was "blown out" of a plane on the ground after he opened the cabin door without waiting for the pressure to be bled off.

Virtually all manually operated doors (such as overwing exit hatches, and the rear door on 727's) on aircraft are "plug" doors, the presurization of the cabin makes it impossible for the door to unseal from the door frame when the cabin is pressurized. The electrical doors like you see on wide bodies are electrically and mechanicly locked out when in flight. As posted above, it would be impossible to open the doors in flight, and thus impossible to get sucked out. But, you still don't want the whack jobs messing with the equipment.

This is odd...just looked at the link to the story again because of GeorgeW's question, but the first paragraph is entirely different. LOL No seriously. The story had sounded very sinister in my original link, but now it's sort of benign. The first part changed from an FA calling for help and the person acting strangely, and being tackled by passengers (now in the last part of the article), to &quot;flipping up a handle like an 8 year old would do as he passed it&quot;. It's an entirely different connotation than given initially, where we had the FA calling for help and passengers coming to her assistance, getting the man down on the ground and pummeling him. I doubt <i>that</i> would happen if someone idly walked by a handle and flipped it up like an 8 year old--or at least I hope not!! LOL

It's like Animal Farm...you go back to read what had been written before and it's changed, ever so slightly...just enough to ask yourself if you were seeing things before?? Or not seeing things??

Spokaneman is completely correct. Note that the rear cone door on the 727 USED to not have an in-flight lockout, according to folklore-- according to legend, DB Cooper made his parachute escape out of the 727 he'd hijacked through that door (he'd forced the plane to descend to a safe altitude to depressurize so he could open that hatch). The lockout was subsequently added, folklore tells us.

Makes for an interesting legend in any case.

So many of the &quot;incidents&quot; on board flights seem to be caused by mentally ill people (rather than terrorists). I don't know how you'd screen for that, and I assume the airlines could not legally do that anyway.

I know that it would be scary to be on some of those flights, but I do feel sorry for the mentally ill folks who behave strangely and end up being tackled and led off the plane to the police.

Maybe I am imagining things, but I seem to recall watching some TV show where they were explaining how some mentally ill people cannot control the impulse to do something, even when they know it is wrong.
Like a thought goes through their mind and they have to act on it.
There have been a few incidents where this compulsion was identified as the cause... like someone blurting out they have a bomb...

Speaking of compulsions, is the show Airline still on? Hard to believe so many people with issues fly.

ha ha, what a dope-a** thing to say. Make that I can't believe so many people with issues manage to fly and stay out of prison.

the less maladjusted come here to post afterwards.. &quot;somebody done somebody wrong&quot; song..

Wouldn't it be great to have a &quot;mental detector&quot; as well as a metal one?

It's reassuring that air marshals were on board.

NO LlindaC~ I'd never get to go anywhere!

Scarier is the story that's attached to the posted url....the one about &quot;banned items are flying past security!&quot;

I was my first air flight and on the way to Hawaii when two drunken Downs Syndrome teens started arguing with each other. This was one of the old party flights and the champagne was flowing freely. They kept filling their glasses and I could tell it would lead to trouble.

Sure enough the crew settled down to laugh and gossip in their little galley and the teens got into a physical fight. The girl jumped up and said she was &quot;leaving&quot;, hmmm.

She tried to open the doors and to my amazement the people on her side of the plane just sat there. I jumped up and told the crew and they talked her back into her seat where she fell asleep or worse.

I think this was when my fear of flying started......

Not just the mentally ill. A lot of problems are caused by people who drink to much - either because that's just what they do normally - or to control fear of flying.

Usually they are just incredibly annoying - but there have been a couple of instances of them assaulting FAs or trying to get into the cockpit.

I blame the airlines for this. You can tell if someone has been drinking when they get on - and they should get no more - and certainly not be served way too many in flight.

On our flight to Italy, we were quasi-complaining to the flight attendant about how it's a bummer that drinks are no longer free in coach. She said that the flight attendants love it because there are fewer drunk people.

what a moron! i'm glad he got clobbered.

David Letterman just told about this incident on his show. As he said, thank goodness the snakes stopped him from opening the door.

Mama said knock you OUT!