Airstair
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An airstair is a passenger staircase that is built in to an airliner - often, though not always, on the inside of the bottom half of a clamshell-style door. The stairs can be raised or lowered while the aircraft is on the ground, allowing passengers to board or depart the aircraft without the need for a mobile staircase or a jetway. Some piston-era airliners were equipped with airstairs, including the Martin 2-0-2, Martin 4-0-4, and versions of the Douglas DC-3 specially modified in the 1940s by Southwest Airways. Although uncommon on modern commercial airliners, most business jets are fitted with one, as were some of the early generation of jet airliners, such as the Boeing 727 and the Ilyushin Il-86, allowing them to operate from airfields with minimal support facilities.
The most well-known airstair is probably that found in the rear underbelly of the Boeing 727. It was this airstair that obviously caught the eye of a man travelling under the name Dan Cooper, also known as D. B. Cooper. On November 24, 1971, he hijacked Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 flying from Portland, Oregon. With the $200,000.00 he extorted for the release of the passengers, he parachuted from the plane at low altitude after lowering the airstair on the aircraft, a feat most experts say would have been impossible to pull off successfully had he hijacked any other jet airliner and tried to exit the plane through one of the cabin doors. It is still debated today whether he was in fact successful, because neither he nor most of the money ever surfaced again.
Following the D. B. Cooper incident and two other similar cases, the Federal Aviation Administration required a device to be fitted to 727 airstairs preventing them from being opened in flight; this device came to be known as a Cooper Vane. Many airlines sealed it entirely.
The Airstair is also a special feature on the United States President's Air Force One Boeing 747.
[edit] External links
- Period photographs of commercial airliners with lowered airstairs, from the Ed Coates collection:
- Douglas DC-3 of Southwest Airways (second photograph on the page)
- Martin 2-0-2, Martin 4-0-4 of Pacific Air Lines
