xkcd

why was it cold, because they couldn’t maintain an internal cabin atmosphere, including temperature?

No pilot or Jet mechanic but afaik the pressurisation is happening with bleed air from the turbines that is then cooled down to comfortable levels. So there is no "heater" for the cabin so to speak as for a warmer cabin you just cool down the bleed air less. As such without pressurisation there is also no cabin heat.

7000 ft is relatively common for small planes like cessnas, they don't even keep pressurized cabins, but It's fine if you stay low. So there's nothing wrong with that altitude, but it's awfully low for a jet. The jet will be flying at low fuel efficiency the whole way and it certainly won't have much wiggle room if something really goes wrong. (You can lose 7000 ft of altitude very quickly)

No oxygen problems that I recall. I don’t think there’s a hypoxia risk until 10K feet? Cold I’m sure because it was like flying with a window open. The heaters for the cabin air probably couldn’t keep up.

Anecdotally, the highest altitude I've ever been at hiking was around 11,000ft, and the group I was hiking with started feeling it a little bit around 9000-10,000 ft.

It wasn't dramatic, where we really noticed it was after we'd made camp, we had a little downtime and there was a bit of an open area, so we started throwing around a Frisbee, and running around chasing the Frisbee we could feel we were getting winded a bit quicker than we usually would.

Age, fitness, genetics, etc. will of course factor into that, but I suspect that most reasonably healthy people sitting in an airplane probably wouldn't feel much at 7000ft. Maybe they would if they were jogging up and down the aisle of the plane, but even then it probably wouldn't be anything too obvious, and if they didn't know anything about altitude sickness they'd probably chalk it up to being tired from the mental stress of air travel- getting to the airport, making the connection, security, lost baggage, etc.

~~actually, cabins are typically pressurized to around 10,000 ft, not sea level, iirc. so this was actually a higher pressure than is typically experienced in a pressurized cabin.~~

I'm wrong

I got mixed up. the limit for unpressurized cabins is 10,000 ft, so if you're flying a small plane without supplemental oxygen you can't go higher than that

just assume they were able to still oxygenate the cabin even if they couldn't go as high

Aircraft are typically pressurized to the equivalent of about 5000-7000 feet altitude.

They do not oxygenate the cabin. The oxygen supplies on board are usually in the form of chemical generators, sometimes known as "oxygen candles", and can only provide about 15 minutes supply. That should be plenty of time to descend below 10,000 feet, where everyone can come off oxygen. They don't "burn" those chemical generators except in actual emergencies.

Pilots and crew have a sufficient supply of bottled oxygen. Pilots and crew are required to go on oxygen if they spend more than 30 minutes above 12,500 feet cabin pressure, or any time over 14,000 feet. Passengers are required to be on supplemental oxygen above 15,000 feet cabin pressure.

Above 35,000 feet flight altitude, at least one pilot must either be on oxygen, or have a mask that can be donned in less than 5 seconds.

I frequently fly at 10 to 12 thousand feet msl and have no issues. Supplemental O2 is only required from 12500 to 14000 for durations longer than 30 minutes. It is required above 14k for the crew according to the regs. At 15k, everyone on board needs oxygen or a pressurized cabin.

Silver lining of depression is taking risks and having mildly entertaining stories after.

They might be referencing this American Airlines “flight” that is actually a bus.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/travel/american-airlines-bus-service-landline-guide

Can opener bridge ~~strikes~~ is struck again!

Sure, they can technically move the plane on regular roads too

Well, not really. Or technically, they can if they move fast enough. If they stop, wherever they are will stop being a road quickly.

And there's that entire problem of making room for the wings. It's one of the largest problems when designing airports.

If it were the sound of the Concorde, may she RIP, I think it’s a loud I could tolerate. Sonic booms from like a city block away would relax my nerves.

Imagine that, but even louder, and moving on normal roads. Should be fun for everyone.

Of course it'll be fun for me. Im in the airplane, getting to my destination on time.