James Bond`s theory on guns and jets not mixing in Goldfinger tested by news of armed air marshalls placed onboard UK jets

The BBC have reported that air marshalls dress in civilian clothes will soon be taking to the air in UK passenger jets to guard against hijackers. But are guns aboard a plane a good idea? Of course one man is an expert on the issue...

"You know a lot more about planes than guns. That`s a Smith and Wesson .45. If you fire at this close range, the bullet will pass through me and the fuselage like a blowtorch through butter. The cabin will depressurise and we`ll both be sucked into outer space together."
- James Bond, Goldfinger (1964)

007`s warning to pilot Pussy Galore that waving a pistol around the cabin of a jet in flight would end in tears has largely shaped the popular debate about what actually happens when bullets breach an aeroplane`s fuselage.

As with most works of fiction, the Goldfinger explanation of explosive decompression is misleading, but contains a worrying grain of truth.

A slug from a .45 might well pass through a human body and the metal airframe "like a blowtorch through butter", but the small hole in the fuselage would only slowly leak air from the high pressure environment inside the cabin into the lower pressure atmosphere outside.

But even this kind of decompression could rob passengers and crew of oxygen. In 1998, an undramatic loss of cabin pressure through a cracked door caused the captain of a UK-based airliner to pass out when he failed to fit his emergency oxygen mask in time.

In the airborne climax of Goldfinger, Bond wrestles with the film`s eponymous baddie, eventually shooting out a window. Despite his girth, Auric Goldfinger is indeed agonisingly blown through the hole and into oblivion.

Just as Gwyneth Dunwoody, the chairman of the House of Commons transport select committee, said of government plans to place armed guards on airliners: "People with guns and aircraft do not mix."

Frank Taylor, a senior lecturer in air safety, says a bullet destroying an aircraft window in real life would have dire consequences for nearby passengers, as dramatised in Goldfinger.

As air rushes out to equalise the "pressure differential" between inside and out, it can reach the speed of sound and pick up objects and people.

"It`s not all fiction. If an airliner`s window was shattered, the person sitting beside it would either go out the hole or plug it - which would not be comfortable."

Thanks to KungFooKing for the alert.

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