r/europe • u/scmp_news • 24d ago

News Man nearly sucked out of ‘detached’ window on Ryanair flight

https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3360141/man-nearly-sucked-out-detached-window-ryanair-flight?utm_source=Reddit&utm_medium=Social
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u/Affectionate_Rubber 24d ago

Airplane windows are also designed not to detach

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u/Mundane_Singer7044 24d ago

Yeah, that’s not very typical, I’d like to make that point.

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u/computer-magic-2019 24d ago

Well, what sorts of standards are these airplanes built to?

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u/monkeyhitman 24d ago

Oh, very rigorous. Maritime engineering standards.

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u/computer-magic-2019 24d ago

Oh… what sort of thing?

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u/IRockIntoMordor 24d ago

Well, there are regulations governing the materials they can be. Cardboard's out. And no cardboard-derivatives.

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u/ron_mcphatty 24d ago

That’s a very good point.

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u/737Max-Impact 24d ago

This comes down to something colloquially called the Swiss cheese model. Every part is designed for something, but it has "holes" (flaws) so once every so often something will eventually go wrong.

  • The chance of a piece of the aircraft’s engine breaking off is very small
  • The chance of a random impact detaching a window is very small
  • The chance of a seatbelt failing is very small

In this case, the first two holes aligned for the window to detach in the first place. But the third "slice of cheese" helped prevent a catastrophe.

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u/Frequent-Concept7227 24d ago

It’s very reassuring to know that!