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

1.73K viewsOtherPhysics

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

Here’s a very NSFW video that will shed some light on it. The short version is that with sufficient energy, humans will simply splatter like throwing an egg on the wall. It’s all there, but it would be more accurate to describe the remains as “biologic material” rather than “bodies”.

Not all crashes are that energetic and so they will indeed find lots of bodies. In fact they usually find more bodies than the number of missing.

You are viewing 1 out of 41 answers, click here to view all answers.