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
It really depends. The bodies that can be recovered are recovered. But in some cases they’ve been destroyed to such a degree that identifying them is next to impossible. If an airplane crashes and catches on fire and you go to the site and see a blackened mass just splattered everywhere you can’t know if you’re looking a burned remains or burned materials from the aircraft. It’s not true that there are never bodies though. Some people are found in various states and others are in a state that’s more or less impossible to identify. A particularly harrowing story that comes to mind is when a train in the london underground crashed into a dead end tunnel full speed. A lot of the people in the forward carriages were crushed into a pulp.
In other cases it’s a question of difficulty. If a ship sinks recovering the bodies can be very hard or impossible. Same for other disasters and accidents like earthquakes, floods, people trapped in caves or up mountains or in the wilderness. The number one rule of search and rescue and body recovery is to not risk the lives of the rescuers, as in you can’t lose more people trying to save or recover others. In those cases if it’s deemed too dangerous or difficult to recover they’ll just give up. It sounds very cruel but it is the right thing to do. Accidents are tragic but losing more people afterwards doesn’t make it better in any way, only worse.
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