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
Well the details of the incident in question would affect the answer here.
in watercraft accidents, for example, passengers may have abandoned the craft and drowned miles from where the wreckage lands…so the discovery of the wreckage doesn’t result in the recovery of their bodies. the watercraft may just be in too deep of water to recover it to begin with. Our outside of the area in which they are searching for it. also, the bodies might have been moved by sea life/decomposed/consumed before the wreckage is found. In plane crashes, the bodies may have been sucked out of the aircraft in a hull breach situation and landed miles from the wreckage and either the bodies or perhaps even the plane itself might land somewhere so remote or off-course that the wreckage cannot be found in the search area. (think how long it took those rugby players that crash landed in the andes mountains to be found. had they died in the crash, that wreckage may have never been discovered.) In terms of spacecraft, were they outside of our atmosphere? Too far to be pulled by the earth’s gravity? Incinerated upon reentry? or still out in space floating amongst the debris? There are lots of different scenarios that might result in bodies being unrecoverable after an exhaustive search. It doesn’t mean the bodies disappeared…just that we couldn’t find them or lacked the means of retrieving them.
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