How long can you survive at high altitude at cruise level when an airliner has catastrophic fuselage failure in flight.?
Does the extreme cold kill you first or the lack of oxygen ?
Did the pilots on the Pan am 747 survive the initial explosion but were alive until the cockpit hit the ground ?
At 30,000ft you got 1 to 2 minutes before you pass out, at 35,000ft you got 30-40 seconds and at 40,000ft you got 15 seconds.
Look at the climbers on the likes of Mt Everest or K2, they always use portable oxygen, couldn’t make it without it in general, there are some nutters that climb without it though, they take their time at stages to get acclimatised.
I wasn’t sure what to do about this question: have to be careful posting such things 
. But it’s readily available info and see someone has answered anyway. Those figures sound about right for time until loss of consciousness. Death would follow shortly after. It’s not the lack of oxygen that causes hypoxia at altitude, but the lack of partial pressure that facilitates the oxygen transition across membranes in your lungs, to your blood. This is why you can hold your breath a lot longer at the surface than you could remain conscious at altitude.
I believe it is considered the Pan Am 103 flight deck crew would have initially lost consciousness due hypoxia, but regained consciousness as the cockpit section fell into the lower atmosphere before impact.
Pretty un cheery thing to be thinking about on a Monday morning though ?
Thanks for replying, there was the incident when a BA pilot was sucked out of the cockpit in flight after a failure in the windscreen, the First Officer managed to hold on to his legs or he would have been minced meet in the engines,he landed safely.The Captain was unconscious, the aircraft dived quickly to a lower altitude.
Captain Moody and his engines failing due to volcanic dust ingested in the Jumbo jets engines,amazing recovery and calmness of the crew.
Another episode of a young probation pilot, his Captain ate sea food in the Far East and collapsed coming in to LHR, the young pilot averted a crash ,flying very low over London.
I went to school with Captain Coward, he crashed at LHR due to ice in the fuel system,his family are farmers near Warminster.
Freightdog,are you Atpl,cpl or ppl ?
Hi Toby, ATPL, on the 744
Freight Dog:
ATPL, on the 744
Lucky you… 
toby1234abc:
.
I went to school with Captain Coward, he crashed at LHR due to ice in the fuel system,his family are farmers near Warminster.
Another lucky guy Peter was, got to fly the triple for fun at BA:grin: Apparently he got sacked then got his job back after the investigation cleared his name.
Freightdog, if you fancy a seat up front to watch aircraft refueling in action, members of the public are allowed, just have a chat with the Wing Commander at Raf BZN Rob Williams, 4624 Movements Squadron.
There is another query, why don’t pilots have emergency water ditching immersion suits, or survival suits for extreme weather conditions in the event of a crash or controlled crash landing in a hostile environment.
They only have a white shirt and blazer, is that enough to survive in ?
Another question, why are aircraft not fully covered by cctv footage that the crew can see all area’s of their aircraft, the wings, the engines, the tail, the under carriage, all angles in order to see a problem.
I know they rely on their instruments to detect faults, failure and fires.
Do you know Captain Batt, his son Joe and Captain Pierce who flew for Saudi Air on Tristars ?
Re immersion suits/survival equip:-
It probably comes down to what the authorities and manufacturers want on board. And that is determined by what they think is necessary against probability of being required.
One problem. If immersion suits were provided to air crew then what about the poor passengers? There’d be mayhem and mutiny . To carry 500 immersion suits would be prohibitive.
Survival equipment is carried on board airliners for ditching and remote land scenarios, in addition to the extensive in flight emergency equipment.
So what about just freighters? On the upper deck they have same as passenger, life raft, life jackets, emergency locators, flares, survival rations and various other good things but a lot more visible and stuck on the bulk heads. They could provide immersion suits but aren’t required to. Airlines hate buying things they don’t have to buy.
Statistically it’s incredibly rare to ditch a passenger aircraft, rarer to ditch and survive and even rarer to ditch far enough away from land to require long term survival equipment. Cargo aircraft are higher risk entities but statistically not deemed necessary. When I flew maritime Coastguard aircraft we wore immersion suits, but then we flew as low as 20 feet over the ocean so relatively higher risk of getting wet. And to answer,shirt, trousers, jeans or even thick jumpers all realistically do next to nothing survial wise when submerged other than hinder you.
Re cameras outside:-
Only ones I’m aware of are for passenger entertainment benefit. As you mention, we primarily use the instruments to deem to the health of the various components. But visual information for some events is very useful. That’s not to say that in the future they wouldn’t fit external cameras. As I say, could be useful in certain circumstances!
I’m afraid I don’t know that chap. Probably before my time. Thank you for the tip off re RAF stuff, very kind of you.
toby1234abc:
There is another query, why don’t pilots have emergency water ditching immersion suits, or survival suits for extreme weather conditions in the event of a crash or controlled crash landing in a hostile environment.
They only have a white shirt and blazer, is that enough to survive in ?
James Bond only has his Tux why should anyone else be different 
Some scuba divers use a small pony air bottle for emergencies if their main tanks run out or fail, do commercial pilots have these for trans ocean ditching ?
This is standard kit for all helicopter crews.
See The Coastguard with Kevin Costner,
And The Perfect storm with George Clooney.
Both films showed ditching helicopters and their crews using pony air bottles.
No air bottles for ditching purposes on commerical airliners I’m afraid. It’s unlikely if you even required such a bottle in a ditching you’d be able to find one, or hang onto it before hand due to the extremely high impact forces.
Coastguard helis are different due possibility of vertical ditching and submersion.
Thanks for replying FD.
Hi FD a quick question re turbulence. I’ve been on a few flights where the turbulence has been , in my opinion, a bit hairy 
I mean how bad does it have to get to threaten the aircraft? I always imagine the pilots wrestling the controls like something out of Air Crash Investigation 
A big line the clip of Tom Hanks in the aircraft in Castaway lol.
Reference to turbulence, the design of the aircraft is built to withstand the forces during extreme conditions.
The wings bend, which makes passengers nervous.
Its just as well that the wings bend,because if they didnt they would break.I know about such things as I am a pilot ,I am rated for paragliders.
bazza123:
Hi FD a quick question re turbulence. I’ve been on a few flights where the turbulence has been , in my opinion, a bit hairyI mean how bad does it have to get to threaten the aircraft? I always imagine the pilots wrestling the controls like something out of Air Crash Investigation
A big line the clip of Tom Hanks in the aircraft in Castaway lol.
Ah don’t worry, really really quite bad to break the thing. The main risk is to people inside. People and objects will be thrown to the ceiling if not strapped in before the aircraft would break. You don’t fly through towering thunderstorms. They have the potential to threaten an aircraft structurally. If turbulence is bad you don’t fight it though, rather keep it steady. If you fight it you risk over stressing the aircraft by your actions amplifying the turbulence. Don’t be worrying!
Yeah, I don’t think that film was clear as to what caused the crash. Looked like explosive decompression. Was only a film anyway so they have to make a drama out of it. There’s more holes in that sequence than my socks so don’t be thinking that’s how turbulence can end. I wouldn’t go to work if that was the case 
It is a great shame passengers are no longer allowed to sit up front, with post 911 put an end to that.
By talking to the pilots, this would stimulate young people to take up careers in aviation.
I have sat in the jump seat many times, you can see the curvature of the Earth.
The best view from the " office" is over the Swiss and Austrian Alps and the Dolomites, that beats a nine to five job.
One 747 elderly Captain had a small metal case for his pens and pencils, a battered
Silver box.
The layout of the cockpit looks complicated with numerous lights,buttons, switches, levers and dials/Crt displays, but they dont need to get data/information from all of that,all the time, just the essentials for the task in hand.
Most are fuses.
Wouldn’t say most are fuses. Trust me, even without the circuit breakers there’s still more than enough buttons to do you until next week . The fuel control system is like something from Noah’s ark (actually that had no fuel system though so scratch that)
Just for you Toby. Here’s a piccy. Only a few of the bits and pieces. You can only really see the hydraulic control panel on the overhead (top left lit up). I’ll try a new post as pic isn’t working on tapatalk
Pimpdaddy:
Freight Dog:
ATPL, on the 744Lucky you…
toby1234abc:
.
I went to school with Captain Coward, he crashed at LHR due to ice in the fuel system,his family are farmers near Warminster.Another lucky guy Peter was, got to fly the triple for fun at BA:grin: Apparently he got sacked then got his job back after the investigation cleared his name.
Captain Peter Burkhill was sacked/let go/forced out following the crash at Heathrow. He later wrote a book, went on tv claiming he’d been unfairly dismissed/let go/forced out, and was, later still, taken back on.
John Coward was flying the aircraft at the time of the crash.
From what I remember, Burkhills claim to unfair dismissal was based on his decision to alter flaps (from 25 degress to 20 degrees ), which prevented the plane crashing earlier and allowed it to reach the grounds of Heathrow.
Seems he apparently took redundancy but couldn’t get a job with anyone else so went back.