Originally Posted by AllanJ
There is probably something wrong with the design of that aircraft.
The door should never fly open due to pressurization. A safety catch is needed to prevent people from being blown out in mid-air if someone plays with the door handle.
Okay, okay, maybe trying to unlatch the door should invoke depressurizing so in an emergency there is no delay telling the pilot to depressurize before the doors can be opened.
A door opening during a (pressurized) flight is not really a concern, as the doors are designed to open inward and there are thousands of pounds of outward pressure on the door at altitude.
This accident was a result of a series of problems/errors, including a pilot manually overriding automatic pressurization controls IIRC, and eventually causing the cabin to be at extremely high pressure while on the ground (very unusual, not supposed to happen) without the flight deck realizing it. An evacuation was ordered due to a suspected fire (smoke alarms can misbehave at high pressure), the FAs struggled to open the door, and during the struggle the door burst open, sucking out the FA who was killed.
More details in an old post of mine and links to the NTSB report at
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...6&#post3326356.