Why Asiana’s A321 emergency exit is so easy to open in the air

It is noisy due to an incident in which a passenger opened an emergency exit during a flight from Jeju to Daegu, but I have also learned something new about this, so I shared it

Why did the door open easily

It’s because the emergency exit of the A321 model is designed to open easily in the first place, so that anyone of all ages can open it

It’s an automatic door with a gas lift, so just raise the lever and open it automatically without having to push the door. Boeing doesn’t open this easily

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During the flight, there will be some resistance to opening the door because of the wind, but the automatic door beat the force of the wind

At cruise altitude, the door would not open due to the difference in air pressure, but the Asiana accident occurred at an altitude of 200m just before landing, so there was little difference in air pressure

But why did the door open during the flight

That’s.

This is because the emergency exit of the A321 model does not have a flight lock function to lock the emergency exit during flight

In the case of Boeing models, unlike Airbus, it has a flight lock function, and the fact that there is no flight lock in the Airbus emergency exit is what I first learned

The emergency exit of the B Boeing 737 model, which is a little smaller than the A321, has this flight lock

While the emergency exit is powered on, the emergency exit cannot be opened, but after the landing touchdown, the lock is released, and the emergency exit can be opened even if the power is disconnected due to an emergency such as a real collision

Accidents like this Asiana flight are unlikely on Boeing models

Of course, Airbus emergency exits without locks are less likely to fail. There are only Boeing flight-locked emergency exits, but if the power is not cut off due to a malfunction in an emergency, the emergency exit cannot be opened, so there are pros and cons

Why the flight attendant couldn’t stop it

This is because there are no crew seats at the third exit on the left of the L3 of the A321 model

스크린샷 출처 : https://youtu.be/KoSmJnDVvLk

The third emergency exit of the plane is that the crew seats are only on the right and not on the left

The accident was caused by a passenger sitting at the left exit

It’s an automatic door that opens just by pulling the lever, but the door is already open when the flight attendant on the right hurriedly takes off the seat belt and runs to the left be unstoppable in the first place

If you try to close this open door again during the flight, a person can crash, so it’s better to leave it until you land

Asiana only has this arrangement, or never, almost all emergency exits of the A321 around the world are like this. And under aviation law, only one crew per 50 passengers needs to be deployed, so this aircraft with less than 200 passengers has a total of four emergency exits It’s not just Korean law, but it’s a common law around the world

When the exit door opened, the escape slide was opened, and the wind ripped it off. The yellow one under the exit is the slide

I’m glad this is the back of the engine, the L3 door. If this had happened to the L2 or R2 in front of the engine, the slide would have been sucked into the engine and caused a bigger accident

Summary

The emergency exit of the 1A321 model is an automatic door and there is no flight lock to lock the emergency exit during flight, so at low altitude, anyone of all ages can open it very easily during flight by simply pulling the lever

The 2A321 model has a total of 8 emergency exits, but if it is deployed with less than 200 passengers, only 4 crew members ride, so at least 4 emergency exits do not have crew members It’s common all over the world

This can happen again at any time unless flight locks are mandatory for all emergency exits or one crew member is required for each emergency exit Is it necessary to change the design of the aircraft itself? It is not easy