Eli5: Why aren’t we able to recover bodies after large travel craft accidents?

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After plane or space craft crashes, what happens to the bodies? Do they implode because of the pressure? In plane crashes, clothes and pieces of the aircraft are found, but no bodies.

After the challenger explosion there weren’t any bodies either.

What happens to them?

Eta: Thank you so, so much everyone who has responded to me with helpful comments and answers, I am very grateful y’all have helped me to understand.

Eta2: Don’t get nasty, this is a safe and positive space where kindness is always free.

I am under the impression of “no bodies”, because:

A. They never go into detail about bodies (yes it’s morbid, but it’s also an unanswered question….hence why I’m here) on the news/documentaries, only about the vehicle and crash site information.

B. I do not understand force and the fragility of the human body on that scale, —which is funny because I have been in a life altering car accident so I do have *some* understanding of how damaging very high speeds in heavy machinery can be. You’re crushed like bugs, basically. Just needed some eli5 to confirm it with more dangerous transport options.

Nonetheless, I have learned a great deal from you all, thank you💙

Eta3: I am learning now some of my framing doesn’t make sense, but y’all explained to me what and why. And everyone is so nice, I’m so thankful🥹

In: Physics

41 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Body parts are recovered always. It’s just not an easy subject nor one that people want to hear about so those parts of the news never make it past the editors. As someone who has seen dismembered human remains in motorcycle accidents I can assure it changes your life for the worse. There are images I will never be able to remove from my mind: literal meat crayon marks, severed head, severed hand, intestines, liver, open thoraxes….its just fucking horrible and I don’t know how medics, paramedics, firemen, police are able to do what they do. It happened once that I saw it happen and saw the aftermath and I was scarred for life (and I was already 28 at the time).

So yeah, body parts are always recovered but there is no reason to make it known out of respect.

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