Co-pilot sucked halfway out of plane after windshield cracks over China

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

Getting sucked halfway out of a plane window is the stuff of movies and nightmares and it happens extremely rarely.

But in mid-April, a female passenger died after being partially sucked out of a Southwest Airlines flight when one of the aircraft’s engines exploded. And then on Monday, the co-pilot of a Chinese Sichuan Airlines flight was also almost sucked out of his plane after a part of the cockpit windshield broke.

After taking off at the Chinese municipality of Chongqing, passengers and crew sensed that something was wrong about half an hour into their flight to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

“We experienced a few seconds of free fall before it stabilized again,” one passenger told Chinese media.



Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/world/wp/2018/05/15/co-pilot-sucked-halfway-out-of-plane-after-windshield-breaks-off-over-china/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c3c7d83e46d9

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. The woman suffered fatal injury before being partly sucked out the window.

The metal fragment(s) that broke the window dealt her the lethal blow. She may have already been dead.

Only fatality ever in Southwest Airlines history.

[Major Nikon]

2. Not the only fatality, just the only passenger fatality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1248

[IronLionZion]

6. Plus an air-rage incident where passengers killed an out of control asshole

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1763

[Major Nikon]

3. Makes be wonder if his belt was fastened correctly

Pilots have 4 point harnesses.

[lagomorph777]

4. Yikes! Glad he survived. Not a very old plane.

I wonder what happened? Any recent bird strikes?

[Hortensis]

5. Having a bad day...or a really good one?

Bad dreams, for sure.

[mainer]

7. Whoa, that's some fancy flying. Great pilot.

from the same article:

Liu managed to pull his co-pilot back into the cockpit, according to his own account. The co-pilot only suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the drama that unfolded at an altitude of 32,000 feet.

The pilot then managed to land the Airbus A319 in the city of Chengdu in a turbulent descent that injured another crew member.

“Everything in the cockpit was floating in the air. Most of the equipment malfunctioned … and I couldn’t hear the radio. The plane was shaking so hard I could not read the gauges,” he was quoted as saying by Chinese media.

In the comments section, it's also noted that the plane was over a mountainous region so it couldn't descend too far and had to hold altitude at 15,000 feet. Also noted is the fact he's an ex-military pilot.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

8. When I was a KC135 aerial tanker navigator a boom operator was sucked

halfway out a window while the airplane was at cruise (35,000 feet, -54 degrees, 600 knots). He was a little pudgy, which prevented him from being sucked all the way out. He was dead before the plane was depressurized enough to pull his body back into the cockpit.

The worse thing was, the window he was sucked out of was unnecessary. It had been put there because the previous tanker aircraft design had a similarly placed window. It was completely useless in our airplane.

[YOHABLO]

9. My first question: What make and model of plane? 2nd: when last inspected.