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Comment by jimmysnuka | Hacker News Reader

Unreal. Do people not go deaf from the sound of the air coming into the exposed fuselage like that? I would have thought they'd be covering their ears or something.

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It's not so bad. Used to be a jumpmaster in the 82nd Airborne, where part of the job was to stick your head out of the side of the open door of a C141 while in flight to check for issues, towed jumpers, etc. It's loud, but survivable. You can hear yelling over it. Of course we were going much slower...

Air is going out at that height, not in! Pressure falls so rapidly that it should be rather quiet after a short while.

400MPH with an open window plausibly causes some loud noise due to turbulent flow across the opening. The turbofan engines are also reasonably close to the opening and ground crew wear hearing protection to mitigate the effects of the noise.

My assumption was that the air pressure at that height is low enough to not be loud. Yeah it’s moving fast but there isn’t much of it. Different story on the ground.

That's a good thought. Initially the density is pretty normal and I'm sure there's a loud sound, but once pressure drops the air wouldn't transmit as much sound.

I don't see enough detail to really know how high they fly once the depressurization happens. I'm guessing that, if possible, they descend to an altitude where the supplementary oxygen is not critical for preserving life so the loudness could go back up. I couldn't find if there's a "typically safe" maximum altitude that is used in depressurization or it's situational.

Probably someone with better flightradar knowledge could figure out the altitude with time.

I found this video of the cockpit communications and it looks like they quickly go to 10,000 feet then down to 7,000 feet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ghXy6O2dc

FUSELAGE BLOWN OUT MID-AIR | Alaska Emergency at Portland

Once pressure is equalized, you have the same situation as an open car window, except at much higher speeds. I don't know about other people, but to me the noise of an open car window is really annoying even at 120 km/h. I can't image what it must be like at airliner speeds.

Plus increased noise from the engines (or at least the engine on that side of the plane), as a sibling comment notes.

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