this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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No Stupid Questions

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96
Why don't passanger airplanes come with parachutes for people? (slrpnk.net)
submitted 7 months ago by Sunny@slrpnk.net to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 110 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 40 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 13 points 7 months ago (6 children)

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?

[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] bobs_monkey@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 7 points 7 months ago

Skydiven.

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[–] user134450@feddit.de 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] CaptainBlagbird@lemmy.world 13 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Wtf, Felix Baumgartner's Jump was over 12 years ago in 2012? That can't be right, what wibbly wobbly time fuckery is this?? 😵‍💫

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[–] Sunny@slrpnk.net 11 points 7 months ago

Ah, yeah this makes total sense actually. Thanks for the insight!

[–] Thorry84@feddit.nl 4 points 7 months ago

Plus a lot of flights are above ocean or rough terrain a lot of the time, limiting the possibilities even more.

[–] Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world 61 points 7 months ago (2 children)
  1. Passengers airplane often fly too high and too fast to safely parachute from
  2. Passengers need to be trained to parachute
  3. Planes rarely crash
[–] TerkErJerbs@lemm.ee 41 points 7 months ago (2 children)
  1. If every psycho and their dog knew there was a parachute onboard for them it would happen often that some drunk asshole decided today was they day they're gonna jump from a commercial flight
[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 18 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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!

[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)
  1. It would take a lot of time to have 150 persons jump and people go crazy even when the plane safely lands, just to go off board
[–] meco03211@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago
  1. (Or maybe addendum to 1. Or 3.) Most complications in flights occur near takeoff and landing. These are altitudes not conducive for parachutes.
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[–] fubarx@lemmy.ml 45 points 7 months ago (1 children)
  • To jump out, they would need to open the doors. There would be problems with decompression at above 10K.
  • You have to deal with people unable to use parachutes. Children, elderly, disabled, afraid of heights, and panicked.
  • There's an assumption an airplane remains level enough. If it's spinning or nose down, trying to reach an exit is another problem.
  • If jumping out ahead of the wing, there's a risk of getting sucked into the engines.
  • Parqchutes are bulky. Trying to get them out of storage and distribute them to a couple hundred untrained people is a tall order.
  • Putting on a parachute, correclty strapping it, knowing when and where to pull the cord, and knowing how to land without breaking bones, hitting tree branches, or ditching into water. These are all issues you can't teach during preflight safety instruction.

Overall, everyone would be better off staying put, not panicking, and hoping a plane and trained pilots can get everyone on the ground, safely.

[–] FleetingTit@lemmy.world 29 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] Seigest@lemmy.ca 35 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Half as interesting just did a video on this

https://youtu.be/3i_RyiQ3-Ak?si=DRWUQw0FHnHRDsts

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 46 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

Short answers from the video: (but its a good video if you have the time)

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 8 points 7 months ago

I like your point #3 the most. We're at #$!@ 30,000 feet, you bastards!

[–] brian@lemmy.ml 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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?

[–] CapeWearingAeroplane@sopuli.xyz 6 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] blargerer@kbin.social 3 points 7 months ago

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).

[–] Seigest@lemmy.ca 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] strcrssd@kbin.social 4 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] HAL_9000@lemmy.world 26 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] Lath@kbin.earth 19 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

pulls rip cord

Pots, pans and other kitchen utensils cartoonishly fly out

[–] BeatTakeshi@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago

Step 3 hold tight to the puke bag before jumping

[–] viralJ@lemmy.world 15 points 7 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] theodewere@kbin.social 12 points 7 months ago (2 children)

"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.."

[–] Death_Equity@lemmy.world 11 points 7 months ago

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.

[–] Sunny@slrpnk.net 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] RovingFox@infosec.pub 9 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Cuz based on the type of accidents, it probably wouldn't make sense. It is just adding extra cost.

[–] pound_heap@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] alphacyberranger@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago

Ejectable doors are already a feature for Boeing airplanes.

[–] TooLazyDidntName@lemmy.world 9 points 7 months ago

https://youtu.be/3i_RyiQ3-Ak

[–] astraeus@programming.dev 8 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Or parachutes for the plane itself?

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/exclusive-video-small-plane-parachute-landing-cirrus-hauppauge-long-island/1400295/

[–] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 6 points 7 months ago

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:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider

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[–] Alpha71@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Because imagine trying to, not only, put your own on. But then getting your kids into them...

[–] cheesymoonshadow@lemmings.world 3 points 7 months ago

Found Captain Kirk's account.

[–] SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

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

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