I used to love having a window seat. But next time I fly, I might just take the aisle seat following news that a sixth window-related incident has taken place on a commercial airline within the space of just one month.
Earlier this week the cockpit windshield of a Sichuan Airlines Airbus A319 detached midflight, causing co-pilot to be sucked halfway out.
Captain Liu Chaunjian told the Chengdu Economic Daily that there was no warning sign before the windshield cracked and his co-pilot was sucked from his seat.
“Everything in the cockpit was floating in the air. Most of the equipment malfunctioned … and I couldn’t hear the radio. The plane was shaking so hard I could not read the gauges.”
Sichuan Airlines Captain Liu Chaunjian.
05/14 Sichuan Airline to Tibet Cockpit windshield entirely gone at 1km height, captain emergency landed Airbus A319 with wind speed 800km/hour, -40c degree, in shirt pic.twitter.com/8pAmyQncDn
— ChinaStreetTalk (@ChinaStreetTalk) May 15, 2018
The co-pilot, who was thankfully wearing his seatbelt (buckle up guys!), was pulled back in and suffered only minor injuries.
While the pilots had the fright of their lives, the 119 passengers they were transporting on an Airbus A319 to Lhasa were unharmed.
Cracks began to appear on April 17 when a shattered window on a Southwest Airlines plane blew one passenger partially out of the plane. She was not so lucky and later died from her injuries.
Image: Marty Martinez/Facebook
The very next day a window pane fell off an Air India flight, injuring three passengers. The next week a Flybe flight in England made an emergency landing after the cockpit windshield cracked shortly after takeoff.
On May 2, another Southwest Airlines flight from Chicago to Newark conducted an emergency landing after a window broke in the aircraft cabin while on May 7 a JetBlue flight travelling from Puerto Rico to Florida had the cockpit window crack.
So what is going on?
There can be many reasons for airplane windows smashing from severe hailstorms to engine malfunction.
We can take some relief in the fact that it’s usually the outermost pane that cracks, and total window and windscreen cracks are much rarer.
READ: A woman passes after being partially sucked out of a plane window
READ: 5 Shocking Facts about Airplane Loos