Here’s a picture of a B737 with the door open, notice anything?
The doors on passenger aircraft normally open forward (unless they are the type that rotate upwards). This is so that if by some miraculous feat of strength you manage to overcome the aircraft pressurization and crack the door open you will not overcome the force of the airstream which will hold the door closed.
Aircraft doors are held firmly in place by the pressure inside the aircraft. Trying to open the door latching handle in flight will NOT open the door. Aircraft doors slide into the inside of the aircraft and sit on pressure stops (See photo).
Through the ingenuity of the door mechanism the door slides diagonally into the inside to sit on these stops so pressurization holds the door closed.
The overwing exit doors are different (see photo). They can be opened on the ground and during low pressurization. There is a real danger of them being opened during takeoff or low altitude operation when the pressure is low. So Boeing held them closed by electric flight lock solenoids to prevent them opening in flight or when the throttles are advanced for take off.
And yes, I’ve opened hundreds of these and been out on the wings and down evacuation slides. It’s great fun.
Humourous true story here….
So as an aside for the question can you open the door inflight we used to get a defect on the doors that the handle was ‘soft latching’ and during low pressurization like on descent for landing the handle would start lifting out of the latched closed position and appear to open. Note the door would not open just the handle lifting. Anyway the flight attendant jump seats are just by the door. And the attendant seated there saw the handle lifting and nearly shit himself thinking the door would come open. and threw himself against the door to hold the handle down with all his might til the aircraft landed while the other attendant reported it to the captain. It was a simple adjustment to stop this happening.
And here’s an example of what happens when the door is NOT latched correctly before flight…
“On 26 September 1983, Fokker F28 VH-FKA took off from Perth Airport on a routine flight to the North West. As the aircraft banked left after takeoff on Runway 21, the main passenger door/airstairs suddenly opened. The air hostess sitting in the jump seat adjacent the door lost her shoes. The door had been closed but the lock bar had not been moved to the upright ‘lock’ position. Ground crew also failed to see the outside door release (aft of the door on the fuselage) was not in the correct horizontal position. The co-pilot also failed to see that the door ‘unlatched’ light (which was orange in colour) had remained on. This check formed part of the pre taxi checklist. However, bright sunlight glare through the starboard cockpit windows made it difficult to see that the light was on. The door fell open as the cabin pressure increased and as the aircraft climbed and banked left. The aircraft circled for two hours above Perth burning fuel before making a safe though spectacular landing.”
Photo Credit: West Australian Newspapers Limited
Author – Paul Rigg
