TikToker Reveals Why Airplane Windows Are Round and Not Square

According to Mashable, when commercial flying was becoming popular, most airplanes began to fly at higher altitudes to avoid turbulence and drag. Since humans can’t survive at altitudes as high as 30,000 feet — and even higher — in the air, designers started to pressurize airplane cabins to create habitable environments.

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At high altitudes, air pressure outside decreases, becoming lower than the air pressure inside the cabins. As air pressure inside the aircraft grows bigger relative to the air pressure outside of it, the aircraft’s structure is stressed, as the metal literally wants to expand.

As designsecrectsss tells us, on the 10r Comet aircraft, that structural pressure built up on the corners of the square windows, which then created cracks in the structure of the plane and, eventually, tragic crashes. The video below gives you a play by play demonstrating the outcome of what can happen with square windows.

Thankfully engineers were able to catch this flaw and fix it to where we can now fly safely with round — well, oval — windows.