# What Happens in a Plane Crash: Impact, Survival and Smoke - Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2117280470656495640 - Source account: [@DamonStrong](https://x.com/DamonStrong) - Source language: English - Duration: 7:16 - Published: 2026-11-03 - Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke ## Transcript [0:01](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=1) This is Damon Strong, and here's a video of what it feels like to die in a plane crash. [0:08](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=8) And before I show you the video, I will just explain to you that the people on that Learjet in Florida who died yesterday, they did not feel a thing when the plane hit the ground. [0:23](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=23) There was no pain whatsoever. By the time the pain had a chance to reach their brain, their brain had al-already disintegrated, so they felt no pain. And here's a video that explains what it's like to die in a plane crash. [0:58](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=58) Here's what happened in the time it takes to blink, and I'll go slow 'cause it didn't. [1:03](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=63) The seat you're in is tested to 16 G. That's a stop like a car into a wall at thirty, and it has to take it in under a tenth of a second. That's the promise. [1:14](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=74) The water asked for something else. In 1998, off Nova Scotia, an airliner hit the sea, and the investigators worked out the number from what was left. [1:23](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=83) At least three hundred and fifty G. Not sixteen, three hundred and fifty. There's no seat for that. [1:30](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=90) There's no body for that. Three hundred and fifty G means this. [1:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=94) The plane stops in a few hundredths of a second. You stop with it. [1:38](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=98) Your bones do 'cause the belt holds your hips. [1:41](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=101) But you're not one thing. You're a bag of things, each one on its own tether, and none of them got the message. Your heart keeps going at impact speed. [1:49](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=109) So does your liver, your lungs, the three pounds of brain in the cup of your skull. The aorta, the main pipe out of your heart, is fixed at one end and loose at the other, and it tears where the two meet. [2:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=120) In a sudden stop, that's the number two killer right after your head. [2:04](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=124) Cars, falls, here. Your brain hits the front of your skull, then the back, and if the water came from below, like it did for the Airbus in the Atlantic, the hit comes up through the seat. [2:15](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=135) The pelvis breaks, and the spine is crushed from below. [2:18](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=138) The investigators found those same fractures in passengers seated all through the cabin. Same fractures, front to back. [2:25](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=145) Then the structure goes. The floor, the seats, the walls that made this a room stop being a room. [2:32](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=152) They go through each other and through you. [2:36](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=156) The Nova Scotia report has one sentence for this, and I'll give it to you exactly 'cause it's the most honest sentence in the whole business. [2:43](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=163) "Human remains were fragmented." Of two hundred and twenty-nine people on board, one was identified by sight. One. [2:51](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=171) The rest by teeth, fingerprints, and DNA over three months. That's what instantly means. It's true. [2:59](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=179) It just isn't gentle. And the promise I made you at three seconds. Pain is a message. [3:06](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=186) It travels along your nerves at anything between a brisk walk and a car on the highway. And from your feet to your head, that takes a twentieth of a second at best, over a second at worst. The impact is over in less than that. Your brain, as a brain, is over in less than that. So the message gets sent, and it arrives at an office [3:25](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=205) that's already closed. I can't show you a document that says so. [3:29](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=209) Nobody writes that one down. I can tell you the physics, and I can tell you that in all my time, nobody's ever asked me about the last tenth of a second. They ask about the eleven minutes. [3:42](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=222) That's the door you went through tonight. [3:44](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=224) There are two others, and I'll show you both quick. [3:47](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=227) 'Cause next time your brain opens the turbulence file, I want it to see all three. [3:51](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=231) Door two. You survive the landing. Most people do. [3:55](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=235) That's not comfort. That's arithmetic. In American airline accidents over eighteen years, ninety-five point seven percent of everyone on board survived. [4:04](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=244) Even in the bad ones, with fire, more than half. [4:08](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=248) So you're down, you're alive, and the cabin fills with smoke from the top, like a glass filling upside down. [4:14](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=254) It's not gray smoke. It's black and hot, and it's made of the seats. [4:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=259) The foam gives off cyanide when it burns. [4:22](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=262) You've got two and a half, maybe three minutes before it takes your legs, and less before it takes your sense. Manchester, 1985. [4:30](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=270) Fifty-five people died on a plane that never left the ground. [4:33](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=273) Forty-eight of them from smoke, not fire. [4:37](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=277) Riyadh, 1980. A plane landed, intact, taxied, stopped, and nobody opened a door for twenty-six minutes. [4:45](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=285) Three hundred and one people, every one of them with soot in the throat. [4:49](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=289) Moscow, 2019. The doors opened and several people from the back rows were found in the aisle at rows six to ten behind the people in front who were getting their bags down. [5:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=300) What burning feels like for the ones the smoke doesn't get first, and I'll keep it short. It's the worst pain a body can make. [5:08](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=308) Every nerve in the skin firing at once until the burn goes deep enough to destroy the nerves themselves. The deep part stops hurting. [5:17](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=317) The edges never do. That's the only honest thing I have for you behind door two, and it isn't much. [5:24](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=324) Door three is shorter and worse, and I'd skip it if I could. [5:28](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=328) The plane comes apart in the air. No cabin. [5:32](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=332) You, your seat, and six miles of sky. The rest of the plane takes a minute, a minute and a half to reach the ground. [5:39](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=339) And the official question, were they conscious, has an official answer from the Dutch investigators who looked at it harder than anyone. [5:47](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=347) Most were gone within moments. For some, they could not rule out that they were awake. Fifty below, no air, five hundred miles an hour of wind. For some of them, maybe a minute of that. I don't have a joke for door three. [6:02](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=362) I looked. And there's a fourth, 'cause I know you'll ask. [6:06](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=366) You asked me last time. The peaceful one. 2005, a plane out of Cyprus climbed without ever pressurizing, and the air in the cabin quietly ran out. [6:16](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=376) The masks gave twelve minutes of oxygen. [6:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=379) Then the plane flew on for two more hours on autopilot with nearly everyone on board unconscious and came down on a hill. [6:27](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=387) Their hearts were still beating when it hit. Almost nobody woke up. [6:31](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=391) You know how I feel about peacefully. It's the view from the door. [6:37](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=397) So what does dying in a plane crash feel like? [6:41](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=401) Not the crash. You're never there for the crash. [6:44](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=404) It feels like the eleven minutes before it. [6:46](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=406) A bump your brain explains away. A window that disagrees. [6:50](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=410) A wave. A woman's voice saying, "Vests." A phone with no service. A sentence you don't finish. [6:58](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=418) And eighty seconds in a belt looking at the sea. [7:01](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=421) It feels like knowing late. Nearly everyone knows late. That's your answer, and it's worse than yes and better than no. They knew for a bit, and it didn't hurt. [7:12](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/B8SQTHdE3oV2/en/what-happens-in-a-plane-crash-impact-survival-and-smoke?t=432) The last part's the only part I'd sign.