Decompression in a plane

Question: What happens when you open the door on an airplane? Does the pressure in the plane stay the same or does it suck you right out?

Answer:

If the plane is flying at high altitude the pressure on the inside of the plane is higher than the outside of the plane.

This is because the plane is pressurised so that the pressure stays the same as it would at ground level (roughly 100 000 Pa).

At, say, 10 000 m the air pressure outside the plane is much lower (about 30 000 Pa), roughly one third of what it is at sea level.

So if the door is opened the higher air pressure in the plane will blow you, and everything else that is not fixed, out of the plane.


So you actually PUSHED OUT not SUCKED OUT!

Not a nice thought.

Of course eventually tthe pressure in the plane will fall to the same as the pressure outside it.