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Can you survive in a cargo hold?

The cargo hold is heated and pressurized, animals fly in cargo all the time. So, yes you can survive. Stowing away in the wheel well is almost certain death. Some cargo holds are pressurized and some are not.



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Being trapped inside a baggage compartment during a flight is no picnic. The hold is pressurized. There is plenty of oxygen, but some airline cargo holds are not climate-controlled, Thompson said.

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They usually have a large and empty fuselage, with no seats, windows, or amenities for passengers. However, some cargo airplanes may have a small and separate cabin for the crew and a few authorized passengers, such as pilots, mechanics, security personnel, or cargo handlers.

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Cargo operators use passenger airports as well. Night flights for passengers aren't popular for a variety of reasons. Which means there are less flights for passengers landing and taking off during the night hours freeing up slots for cargo.

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That being said, most flight crew will have considerably higher tolerance for turbulence than most passengers, and crews flying freighters are considerably more likely to just ignore some light turbulence than crews flying passengers (the boxes* neither shriek, nor write nasty letters to the airline).

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Most of the survivors were sitting behind first class, towards the front of the plane. Nonetheless, a TIME investigation that looked at 35 years of aircraft accident data found the middle rear seats of an aircraft had the lowest fatality rate: 28%, compared with 44% for the middle aisle seats.

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Airplanes are designed so that a water landing won't cause immediate harm to passengers. Many ditching-related deaths are from drowning, not the impact. But don't let this discourage you from flying. Forced water landings are unlikely to happen, especially on a commercial flight.

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Although responsible airlines do their best to keep your pet comfortable, it is true that cargo travel can be very stressful on animals. A plane's cargo area is loud, dark, and cluttered.

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Based on the information provided by the detection warnings, flight crew initiate the suppression of any fire by discharge of Halon gas into the affected cargo compartments. Halon is a very effective suppression agent which operates by chemically reacting with the radicals generated by a fire, to inhibit the reaction.

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Typically, cargo fire suppression systems have an initial high-rate knockdown discharge, followed by a low-rate metered discharge of Halon 1301, designed to keep the fire suppressed for continued safe flight and landing at the nearest suitable airport. Halon can be discharged into the forward or aft cargo compartment.

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Most flights are intended to spend as little time as possible over water, since storms are more common over the ocean than on land. An aircraft would not be safe to fly over the Pacific Ocean due to the stormy weather and frequent lightning strikes that occur there.

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At cruising altitude, the pressure outside a plane is around two-and-a-half times lower than inside the cabin, so a broken window or a large hole in the fuselage can be catastrophic, causing a blast of air that will suck out seats as well as people.

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According to the AirAdvisor Airline Safety Score, Alaska Airlines, Allegiant Air, American Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, and United Airlines are all the safest. Each had a perfect accident record in 2022 and had no reported incidents based on data from IATA.

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When an aircraft experiences turbulence, the plane can drop or change altitude suddenly. This is why pilots always caution passengers to buckle up and stay seated when they are experiencing flight turbulence. The sudden movements put passengers at risk.

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A pilot encountering turbulence has three options: change altitude, alter course, or ride out the roughness. Fighting turbulence with aggressive movement of the flight controls can make a bad situation worse. This is because maneuvering loads, the Gs created by moving the flight controls, are cumulative.

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Sometimes it's unavoidable to fly through light and moderate turbulence, but rest assured your pilots are working to find smooth air. If they encounter severe or extreme turbulence not forecasted, pilots will quickly climb or descend to a safe and smooth altitude.”

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