Sudden decompression, which would occur if a plane door was suddenly thrust open, is another matter. Anyone standing near the exit would be ejected into the sky; the cabin temperature would quickly plummet to frostbite-inducing levels, and the plane itself might even begin to break apart.

In a modern commercial airliner at cruising altitude (30,000+ feet), it is physically impossible for a human to open the door. These are "plug-type" doors that open inward before swinging out; because the cabin is pressurized to a much higher level than the thin outside air, several tons of force are holding the door against the frame. However, if a door were to fail or "blow out" (as in a rare mechanical failure or mid-flight explosive decompression), the result is a violent outrush of air. Unsecured objects and potentially passengers (if unbuckled) could be sucked toward the opening. The cabin temperature would drop instantly to sub-zero levels, and the oxygen would become too thin to breathe, triggering the "rubber jungle" of oxygen masks to drop. Pilots would immediately initiate an emergency descent to below 10,000 feet where the air is breathable. While terrifying and noisy, most modern planes are designed to withstand such a loss of pressure and land safely. In smaller, unpressurized private planes, a door opening is less dramatic—it's mostly just very loud and windy, and the plane remains perfectly flyable as long as the pilot remains calm.