Mr Romney, who has a track record of verbal gaffes, had referred to an emergency landing by an airplane carrying his wife during a fund raiser in California. But his light heart objection to windows that “don’t open” was seized on by critics as his latest outlandish offensive against common sense.
American media websites and blogs filled with mockery of the candidate. The storm scarcely abated when reporters at the event conceded Mr Romney had made a joke, albeit it one that did not translate outside the room.
During the $6 million (£3.7 million) fundraising event in California, Mr Romney brought up an incident at the weekend when his wife’s aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing.
He mused that she would have coped better if she was able to breathe outside air during the fire.
"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," Mr Romney said, according to the LA Times. "When you have a fire in an aircraft, there's no place to go, exactly, there's no – 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. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she's safe and sound."
The plane suffered an electrical failure and was forced to make an emergency landing.
Experts pointed out that opening a window would provide oxygen to fuel the fire and a loss of cabin pressure that could rip the fuselage apart.
Mr Romney was struggling to fend off criticism of leaked remarks that 47 per cent of Americans who did not pay taxes were dependent on the state and would vote for President Barack Obama.
Off-topic remarks run in the family.
The presidential bid by his father George Romney, once governor of Michigan, ended soon after he declared that he had returned from a trip to Vietnam "brainwashed" by the military.
The aeroplane gaffe comes a week after he was recorded as saying to fundraisers: “there are 47 per cent who are with him [Obama], who are dependent upon government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it”
Romney's visit to Downing Street prior to the London 2012 Olympics was also overshadowed by an ill-timed remark questioning London's readiness for the Games, which won him few friends.
During the same international tour which took in Britain, Israel and Poland, comments about the differences between Israeli and Palestinian economies led to allegations of racism from Palestinian officials, while the Poland leg of the tour was marred by Romney's senior inviting reporters to 'kiss his ass' after they asked Mr Romney questions.
