re: #19 Killgore Trout (quoting Allah Pundit)

But what if … the windows could be opened at low altitudes? The pilot could bring the plane down to a few thousand feet (a la skydivers) to reduce the pressure differential and then a few windows could be opened to flush out the smoke and save the passengers’ lives. Could that be what Mitt Romney, Harvard grad, tycoon, and frequent air traveler, meant?

Let’s assume the pilot can bring the aircraft low enough fast enough to permit this manoeuvre. So what’s the minimum speed a passenger jet must travel at in order to stay aloft? A quick Google suggested 160 mph, but the odds are good someone here knows a better answer.

But I suspect the speed is significantly higher than highway speeds in a car, where this passenger has always found that a lot of air rushes IN at high speed. A stationary car would be more likely release smoke from its open windows, as would a car travelling at moderate speed. A jet travelling over twice highway speed? It seems more likely the air and oxygen rushing in, in addition to potentially making the aircraft harder to control as the aerodynamics of the craft would be upset, would cause a flash fire.

And according to this discussion at The Straight Dope, a sudden inflow of oxygen inside a burning plane can have tragic consequences:

Consider as an example Air Canada Flight 797. This flight had a slow smouldering fire that started under the rear lavatory. The cabin filled with smoke. The pilots managed to make an emergency landing despite the smoke and losing electrical power and most of their flight instruments. When the doors were opened to let the passengers out, the sudden influx of oxygen caused a flashover that turned the cabin into an inferno.

Had it been possible to open the windows in flight, the plane would probably have burst into flames and crashed with a loss of all lives. As it was, about half the people onboard managed to make it out before the flashover.

If you want to help prevent deaths from fires on airplanes, work on controlling ignition sources and making airplane contents less flammable. If the plane is so full of smoke that people can’t breathe, it’s probably already to late to save them.

Anyway, I think Romney was trying to make a joke in his usal hamhanded way. I think he knows that you can’t open the windows at altitude, but I hope to God that he wasn’t considering the option of opening the windows at a lower altitude. He does tend to blunder into things arrogantly and cluelessly, though, doesn’t he?