You are right about the air getting sucked out of your lungs. I went thru altitude chamber training when i was in the Air Force for an F-15 fighter ride i was going on. The last part of the training was "Rapid Decompression" IT WAS RAPID. it felt like someone hit me in the chest. We had to stand up and put on our oxygen masks and " Breathe Normal" kind of hard when the oxygen mask is forcing air into your lungs.. you actually have to breath backwards. I dont know if thats is how it works on a comercial jet but thats how it works in a fighter.

How insane do you have to be to get on a commercial airliner these days?

BTDT how paranoid do you have to be not to. I have flown well over 20 times (and I am only 17) and yet have never once had a problem with a flight. These stories that you hear about planes crashing and other problems make people like you too paranoid to fly yet the chances of them happening are less than 1 in a million. So please get out of your protective bullet proof plastic bubble, take your children off the leash and go live your life

CJ.... I'm tagging to you since there are a lot of misguided comments and your's has some validity. I have done a number of high altitude bail-outs, both HA/HO and HA/LO....all in the range of 25,000 to 32,000 ALF...If you have a constant supply of pressurized O2 on the way to altitude (25K +/-), you can exit or rapidly descend with little effect, with out O2. This does not apply to crew members performing flight duties...that's why they have a separate survival system. Above (25k +) you need Bail-out O2 to function if performing flight duties...but as noted you will start breathing as you decent, but again the crew is on a different system.

With regard to temp, at the lower alt. (25k), you would have to remain exposed at alt. for a sustained period of time and the sudden decompression, although scary could not be catastrophic. At 30k++ there's a whole new scenario....things tend to fly about... That's why the Air Force had to buy pressurized toilet seats and coffee pots for the big boys out of Stewart etc., not that the media ever bothered to investigate..but again passengers aren't going to explode or get drug out of the plane......unless like in the movies the plane explodes....but if that happens go back to the 50's idea of nuclear blast protection.... if you don't believe this check the portals on your next flight...you'll see little "equalization" holes in the outer surface and feel air going out of the cabin.....also for sh-ts and giggles look at the wing rivets shake, rattle and roll

your more likely to die from the big guy next to you rolling over on you during the flight.......