Parachutes require pretty specific conditions to be able to use, and they require a fair amount of know-how. Expecting random passengers to be able to operate a parachute at all is basically a losing battle, and if you had people jumping out of planes that were on their way down, you'd have a lot more people dying (speculation but I'd wager money on it) than if they just stayed in the plane. Plus it'd be a horrible look for the airline - even worse than a plane crashing and killing everyone on it - if they had dead people raining down over cities and whatnot because they jumped and didn't properly deploy their chute, or deployed it too quickly, or didn't jump at the right time and got hit by the plane or any number of other possible problems.
Fighter jets and the like have ejection seats that specifically propel the pilot away from the plane before deploying the chute, and recreational (or military) planes that people are jumping from are designed for that purpose, and are moving a lot slower than commercial airliners. Opening the door on a plane to let people jump would cause more problems than keeping them on the plane. (People getting sucked out the door and the like.) Getting passengers safely clear of a plane that's going down unrecoverably would be basically impossible.
Commercial airlines also fly really high up. If you were ejected at cruising altitude, the first thing you would do is pass out and fall for a few minutes. Hopefully you wake up in time to orient yourself and activate a parachute.
That's not to say you couldn't have an auto deploy mechanism at a given altitude. I haven't skydived (skydove?) in years, but isn't there an emergency deployment mechanism if the chute hasn't deployed by a certain altitude?
There probably is, but that brings in another huge problem. Maintenance of all this stuff, parachutes can't just stay packed indefinitely. Maintaining 100s of parachutes per plane is wildly impractical.
True, plus the liability. I'd also imagine the optics might be a bit better when you have the plane go kaboom into the ground vs having a number of people go splat in a populated area.
The emergency deployment system is your skydiving instructor grabbing onto you and pulling the cords of your primary (in case it was user error), then secondary (in case the primary failed) and finally just holding on while the instructor deploys their chute.
I know absolutely nothing about this, but aren't there parachutes that basically just auto-deploy as soon as you jump? I seem to remember seeing something where people hop out and are followed out by a long piece of string that catches on the plane and yanks the chute when it hits a certain length, or something like that. Presumably they don't work at 11km elevation though.
You’re describing a static line jump. You’re also right that it’s irrelevant to passengers jumping out at an extreme altitude and having a parachute open much later. Static lines are used for planes that are already flying at an appropriate altitude for the parachute to open.
Yeah just looked it up and that's exactly what I was thinking of! Aside from the obvious technical limitations and the part where you probably couldn't teach average Joes to parachute reliably, I imagine the simple act of getting everyone to actually jump out of a plane is probably immeasurably difficult too. Like I know people who won't even walk across certain bridges because their fear of heights just won't allow it, getting someone like that to muster the courage to jump would be impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Piantanida
This guy was in a remote controlled, parachute equipped gondola at 17km altitude wearing a pressurized suite. His suit broke and even though the emergency descent of the gondola was immediately activated to descend safely, he later died from embolism (bubbles forming in the blood because of rapidly decreasing pressure). Passenger jets cruise at about 11km so i gather it would be similar.
Wtf, Felix Baumgartner's Jump was over 12 years ago in 2012? That can't be right, what wibbly wobbly time fuckery is this?? 😵💫
Just train random airline passengers on how to properly perform a HALO jump during the pre-flight safety briefing. I’m sure it’s fine.
Plus a lot of flights are above ocean or rough terrain a lot of the time, limiting the possibilities even more.
No it'd be some Karen who got scared by turbulence trying to jump after convincing half the plane that she knew they were going to crash because of it. The same type of "do your own research" crowd that convinced half the population that COVID was a hoax because they know better!
Overall, everyone would be better off staying put, not panicking, and hoping a plane and trained pilots can get everyone on the ground, safely.
If a plane can stay level enough for long enough to get people into parachute gear and out the door, chances are good that the pilots can land that plane, which significantly decreases the chances of injury to the passengers.
Building them into the seats makes about all those problems go away. But decreases the amount of seats you can fit on plane and amount of money made per flight and therefore is never going to happen
Half as interesting just did a video on this
Short answers from the video: (but its a good video if you have the time)
Specifically about that third point, how long would it take to get into a "livable" range if you were free-falling? Like obviously hypoxia is a legit concern, but are you going to get out of that range quick enough to avoid real complications?
You'll survive for quite a while once you're below 6000 m. In free fall that would take you around 90 s, assuming a fall from 11000 m, and that it takes 200 m (5 s) of fall to reach terminal velocity of 200 km/h.
This is quite rough, but gives an appropriate order of magnitude. In those 90 s, you would be very likely to pass out and be guaranteed to get severe frost bite. We're talking major amputations levels of frost bite, as you would be moving at 200 km/h, exposed, in temperatures in the -50 C to -10 C range. I've seen people get frost bites moving at 40 km/h in -15 C for a couple of minutes with just a sliver of skin exposed.
So short answer: You might survive getting into the survivable range, but at the very least you will require intense and immediate medical attention upon landing. Seeing as there will be potentially a couple hundred people spread out over a large, possibly remote, area requiring this attention, it's unlikely that many, if any, would survive the ordeal, even if most people survived the initial 5000 m of fall into the survivable altitude range.
I have no idea what a livable height is, but it take about 3 minutes to hit the ground falling from that height (obviously there is a lot of error here depending on the exact person).
Also just being realistic those parachute are probably just going to be questionable bargin bulk buys. They'd be designed to be as cheap as possible while just barely passing legal standards. They never be maintained or inspected. And there's no way they support my 6'5" 300lbs ass as my frozen corps plummets to the earth below.
FAA is one of the better government agencies. In the US, they'd have to be tested and be shown to work on a regular basis in the same way that the emergency rafts and oxygen candles are tested.
That question got me thinking: In which major disaster would there have been time to get people off board and deploy parachutes? Any major disaster I can think of happened so fast or unbeknownst to anyone on board, or in unfavorable conditions for parachutes, i.e. takeoff or landing.
The only one coming to mind is the Gimli glider and that turned out fine.
There's been tons of slow moving air disasters where there would have been time to suit up and jump from a safe altitude. Lots of electrical fires, jammed cables and shoddy repairs over the years.
Come on. When you have companies like Boeing unwilling to even build a plane right, you'd actually expect them to add parachutes and not cheap out on them?
Let's be serious here.
How do you envisage it working in practice? If a plane had a disaster that will make it crash in a matter of minutes, people wouldn't form an orderly line to jump out with their parachutes. And if the malfunction is not making the plane crash in the next 5 minutes, the plane can probably land safely at the nearest airport.
So another reason is that first class passengers would be at the back of the queue? [ * for the ramp at the back when parachuting]
Not necessarily. I've flown on many flights where the first class has its own door at the front of the plane, and the lower classes have their entrances further down the fuselage, so that the first class isn't bother by the boarding plebs. I fly pleb class btw.
I don't think you can parachute from the front door (which would also put you in front of the engines) - the only airliner stairs to open in flight were at the back.
"okay everyone, stand up calmly and put on your parachute while the plane falls out of the sky.. once everyone is done with that, and all parachutes are secure, we will begin an orderly de-boarding.. thank you for your attention - while the plane falls out of the sky for some reason.."
People can barely get off or on a stationary plane in an orderly fashion.
There would be people climbing over one another and seats, people getting trampled, Stooging at the doors, people getting knocked out of the door without a parachute, and people falling to their death because they didn't put the parachute on right or they exceeded the weight limits of the equipment due to their American figure.
Right, the question definitely sounds incredible silly when you put it like that haha, but fair point. Was more thinking it would be better that some survived than none, but indeed: on a full passanger airplane this would probably never work out.
maybe you could pack a chute inside each seat, and then just dump all the seats out with everyone still in them.. chutes deploy automatically.. like a pilot's seat in a jet fighter, but less complicated..
I've seen a concept of an airplane that can eject sections of it's hull, each equipped with a large parachute. This can solve the problem of "how to put parachutes on each passenger including kids, disabled and panicked and teach them how to use it". Also it doesn't require the plane to maintain certain height, speed or angle for parachuting.
But of course it will add extra weight to carry, because not only they'll need to install big parachutes, but also ejection system and something to seal off ejectable sections.
Cuz based on the type of accidents, it probably wouldn't make sense. It is just adding extra cost.
I want to rent one of those airport mall storefronts and sell parachutes to 737 max customers.
I literally thought about this on my flight a couple weeks ago, if the plane loses power in the air most people in the plane are just gonna go down with it. I imagine most if not all passengers have no idea how to properly operate a parachute.
Some chance would be better than none right? Don't they have parachutes that automatically deploy at a specific height?
At what cost though? Like a single parachute without an automatic release system costs hundreds, if not thousands. You multiply that by 150 and it’s infeasible. Now include an automatic deployment system, and we’re talking tens of thousands per unit. Not including maintenance and repairs, long-term storage costs, the added weight on the plane. All these costs would be added to passenger tickets at a markup, so that $450 flight across the country is now a $700 flight. The risk also still remains because of depressurization issues, even if you make it to the surface your blood might boil in your body and still cause you to pass.
Logistically, plane accidents that result in loss of life are so rare that it would make more sense to equip every car in production with ejector seats then it would to equip every plane seat with automated parachutes.
Or parachutes for the plane itself?
It works for the Cirrus because that plane is tiny. A parachute big enough to safely land a commercial jet is not feasible.
If a commercial plane has a failure, say an engine failure as in the news story, the pilots with fly the plane with the other engine to a safe landing.
If the Cirrus has an engine failure it becomes a glider. If there's no airports nearby you'll have to ditch in a field somewhere. There is a lot less redundancy in general aviation.
If you're a new pilot buying your first plane, having a parachute on the plane is a nice feature.
If a comercial plane has both engines fail and can't be restarted, it also turnes into a glider, a small wind turbine will deploy and power basic instruments and controls, check this out:
It's worth noting that all commercial aircraft that operate over water (so, the vast majority, excepting very small commercial aircraft and four-engine behemoths) have ETOPS ratings. [ETOPS, Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS#:~:text=ETOPS%20(%2Fi%CB%90%CB%88t%C9%92,%2Dengine%2Dinoperative%20flight%20conditions.) specifies the amount of time the aircraft can operate on a single engine, measured in minutes. ETOPS-180 is a pretty common rating.
Because imagine trying to, not only, put your own on. But then getting your kids into them...
Weight. Chutes are heavy and means more fuel use and less range with less people. Which means more flights, which means more planes, crew, maintenance, parts, landing fees etc.
It would be easier to strap a large parachute to the plane which has been done on small aircraft
I'm a licensed skydiver and the planes we jump out of go about 80 mph. Passenger airplanes go MUCH faster and higher than that and the wind speed alone would rip yer skin off.
also skydiving isn't exactly something that typical commercial airline passengers would ever be interested in doing. If you're not properly trained, you're gonna have a bad time.
There's no peer reviewed evidence that parachutes work https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/
fair, but wasn’t obvious to me so i figured i’d share my findings for others who didn’t get the joke.
In other words (and more neutrally), there have not been any randomized controlled trials of parachute intervention, so we do not have data to say whether they would work or not.
Imagine being part of that experiment.
“Here’s your parachute. Hope you aren’t part of the control group!”
This is satirizing the view of people who feel observational studies - studies in which everyone is treated with the experimental medicine and the response of the entire group is evaluated - aren't clear enough or rigorous enough to prove that a drug works. True, these studies sometimes lack the clarity of a perfect randomized double-blind study, but as we see with the parachute, sometimes the results are pretty clear anyway. And in a life-or-death situation, no one wants to take the chance on a placebo. In other words, the "advocates of evidence based medicine" are being "challenged" with a little sarcasm. Inglis-Arkell 2014
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a medical intervention justified by observational data must be in want of verification through a randomised controlled trial.
This was a great read. Thanks.
Hahaha I didn't think the odds for the life vest execution would be so bad, and that's way more simple than a parachute.
You're not counting children and babies, how will they go out? and besides all the passengers will have to be wearing the parachutes during the flight.