People are suckers for experiments, and over the decades we’ve seen a bunch of them try out outlandish things for the sake of science, or simply personal curiosity. But would you be able to convince 500 people to jump inside a Boeing 777 just to see what happens?
The 777 has been in operation since the mid-1990s, and since then it has been at the center of about 30 aviation incidents of various types - that would be about one major accident per million departures, according to Boeing, which, believe it or not, is one of the lowest numbers in the industry.
Some of these incidents involved mere mechanical failures, other hijackings, but none of them involved people jumping on the plane in unison, for a very simple reason: no one has tried it before. But if you wonder how that's like, the guys over at What If are here to enlighten us a bit on the hows and whys of such an unlikely experiment.
The 777 was chosen for the task because of the large number of passengers it can seat, up to 396 people (in the 777-300ER version). Granted, that’s lower than the 500 imagined for this exercise, but we reckon the effects of so many people jumping on the plane would not differ all that much between 400 and 500 pairs of feet.
What effects, you ask?
Surprisingly, What If suggests, if a number of elements, like the weight of the passengers, and the speed and altitude of the airplane, are just right, nothing really dangerous should happen.
If each of the 500 passengers weighed 75 kg (165 pounds) on average, for a total of 37,500 kg (82,673 pounds), and the plane was flying at cruising altitude at speeds of around 870 kph (541 mph), all that would happen would be a rise in altitude at the moment of the jump and change of plane trajectory, both easily correctable by the captain.
Things, of course, would be a bit different if the weight of the passengers would be much greater, or unevenly distributed, or the stunt would be performed while the plane was engaged in takeoff or landing.
It would also be a bad idea for people to continue jumping even if all the right conditions for a relatively safe experiment are met. An instability called flutter might set in, affecting the aircraft’s aerodynamics and its natural frequency. This in turn could lead to structural failures of the plane, and eventually crash.
Below is the video of the What If imaginative experiment.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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