I think the Mythbusters debunked the explosive decompression myth.  Not an overly scientific source but not bad for cable media.

Chris

Sent from my iPhone 5

On Feb 10, 2013, at 20:05, "Charlie England" <ceengland7@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 02/10/2013 07:50 PM, Ernest Christley wrote:
>> On Feb 10, 2013, at 12:29 PM, Charlie England wrote:
>>
>>> One obvious thing to do is to allow any sworn law enforcement or military person who's authorized to carry in the line of duty, to carry on board a flight. I bet the odds approach unity that there would be someone in a passenger seat on at least 75% of flights that would be armed.
>>>
>>> Charlie
>> Is it true that a single stray bullet in an airliner at flight lever could/would lead to a catastrophic decompression.  Granted, you'd get the terrorist, but is it worth sacrificing everyone on board?
> Science through Cinema. :-)
>
> Doesn't happen. Remember the incident coming into Hawaii a number of years ago? The plane lost a big chunk of the fuselage due to structural failure, & it still landed safely, with only one or two getting sucked out of the plane. A bullet hole is just a bullet hole. Do the math; the plane is only pressurized to 8k ft, which is only a few psi above ambient at 30k ft. It's not like shooting a hole in a SCUBA tank. The pressurization system just works a tiny bit harder.
>
> Charlie
>
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