Pretty much those drop down oxygen masks are for passenger comfort. If a rapid depressurization happens, and no supplemental oxygen is available, they lose consciousness.
If the pilot descends to breathable altitude in any sane time frame, they wake up again just fine.
Most passengers do not die from a depressurization. This was Scientific American? I suppose if the cabin depressurized at 33k, and you flew along like nothing was wrong, they would die. But geez anyone can see it was a joke. It’s a safe bet he’s ridden on bizjets. Everyone i know who has traveled much on them winds up with an amateur, but far better than average understanding of flying. They are all far more conversant about the machines than you would expect.
And is this is also the same rag that is all in for human caused global warming.
The one exception that I can think of is a small pressurized plane carry some sports-related passengers.
Here it is: 1999 South Dakota Learjet crash
In the article, there's a link to a list of "uncontrolled decompression" accidents.
I thought of the scene from 2001, considered to be fairly realistic, but completely forgot about the Cosmonauts that had a value open too soon shortly after reentry.
Early in the US Space program, when pressure suits were being tested, one stuck a guy in a suit in a vacuum chamber. Something went wrong, but whomever created the test also had a rescue guy in a connected chamber at some partial atmosphere that would allow access relatively quickly, if something went wrong at 0 psi.