“Why a Passenger Opened Emergency Door During Asiana Airlines Flight: Pilot’s Explanation”

“No human being could do that. It’s just useless to try.” Unless, it happens at low altitude. So the commander Danilo Recine, pilot coordinator of Anpac (National Professional Association of Civil Aviation), explained in an interview with Gazzetta.it what happened on board theAirbus A321 dell’Asiana Airlines where a passenger intentionally opened the emergency door when the plane was still in flight and whose images went around the world.

“A plane going to altitude keeps one inside pressure enough to allow people to breathe. So the pressurization system creates a huge difference with the external pressure. That is makes it impossible open the doors at high altitude”, explained Recine, adding that however “the fact occurred at low altitude, a situation in which the system knows that it is about to land. As we go down, in fact, the pressurization decreases, to the point where, near landing, the aircraft should have none left. Because, by design, the doors must be able to open at this altitude. In jargon we call them “armed”: it means that they are equipped with slides that automatically deploy in case of emergency”.

But we will have to wait for the results of the investigations to actually understand what happened because – concluded the pilot – “since the opening mechanism involves forward movement of the hatch, even at that altitude at a speed of about 200 km/h it would take one almost inhuman effort to open it”.

The flight in question had departed from Jeju and was bound for Daegu with 194 people on board and, before landing, flew with the emergency door open. None of the passengers were injured, but nine people were brought in hospital after experiencing breathing difficulties. The person responsible for opening the hatch, a 30-year-old man, was arrested.