a half hour into the flight, at 32,000 feet, the windshield in front of the co-pilot broke, and he was “sucked halfway” out of the cockpit window after the window blew out, Reuters reports.
“Suddenly, the windshield just cracked and made a loud bang,” Captain Liu Chaunjian said. “The next thing I know, my co-pilot had been sucked halfway out of the window.”
He described a harrowing scene. He said anything that was not screwed down was “floating in the air.”
“I couldn’t hear the radio,” he said. The plane was shaking so hard I could not read the gauges.”
The co-pilot was wearing a seatbelt and was pulled back in, suffering only minor injuries, the report said.
http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2018/05/15/airline-co-pilot-sucked-halfway-out-cockpit-window-reports-say.html
That's a very unusual mishap. Usually this sort of thing is the result of a birdstrike. The windscreen must have been damaged at some other point, and failed as it reached a critical dynamic of low atmospheric pressure, sub zero temperatures cabin pressure and air speed. My long time nit pick is that people get blown out, not sucked out. Doesn't make the end result any better, though.
ReplyDelete