Mitt Romney asks why plane windows won't open
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US Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who has been flying around the USA with his wife Ann this summer on his campaign trail, has revealed a rather flimsy knowledge of the science of aviation.
After Ann's plane was forced to make an emergency landing last week, Romney spoke to the Los Angeles Times about how worried he had been for her safety.
"I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don't think she knows just how worried some of us were," Romney told the paper.
"When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly... and you can't find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don't open. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous."
In case you're wondering, plane windows don't open because there isn't enough oxygen at cruising altitude to keep passengers alive. (The fear of window or cabin failures, which would lead to potentially fatal hypoxia, is why many planes are equipped with emergency oxygen masks).
Romney's implication that additional oxygen in the cabin during the electrical malfunction could've alleviated the problem is also misguided. In fact, if there were an electrical fire on board, additional oxygen would have fed the flames.
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