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.
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.
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.
Half as interesting just did a video on this
Short answers from the video: (but its a good video if you have the time)
- They weigh a huge amount and take up a lot of space, so carrying them on every flight would be crazy expensive for extra fuel cost and reduce other baggage cargo that could be carried.
- Current day passengers have difficulty just putting and keeping a simple seat belt on. Properly putting on a parachute, especially in the small space you have in an airliner, and successfully deploying it outside are beyond what airline passengers are capable of doing.
- Passenger jets fly too high and too fast to survive jumping out of one at cursing altitude. Even if you successfully put on the parachute, got out of the plane without being sucking into an engine or hitting a control surface at 400MPH, you would quickly suffocate from lack of oxygen and/or freeze to death from the sub zero temperatures at that altitude.
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.
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.
Cuz based on the type of accidents, it probably wouldn’t make sense. It is just adding extra cost.
I SAW A VIDEO ABOUT THIS 20 MINUTES AGO
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.
