When you are in free fall you local space-time is flat, because everything around you is falling (or orbiting) with thae same acceleration (thus same velocity, thus stays at the same place versus you). No experiment can detect gravity in free fall. So, even crossing event horizon you do not "feel" anything unusual.

Also, when you cross event horizon (falling or orbiting) you speed (versus distant observer) is always LESS than c, unless your mass is zero like a photon has. Then your speed is ALWAYS c regardless if you are near event horizon or far from it (and even inside black hole).

By the way, huge black holes (say, with the mass of Milky Way) have very weak gravity near event horizon and thus tidal force can be negligible too - so crossing their event horizon is not only unnoticeable but also is completely harmless.

• Correction: you FEEL no event horizon. (nt) - alexander - January 8, 2002 - 00:52 UTC
  • thank you splat and alexander - wildratsci - May 14, 2002 - 16:42 UTC