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This is so obvious and is nothing new but I just don't know why it's not implemented.
We should have a law making it mandatory for all airplanes to carry enough parachutes for each passenger. The reason is simple: people who bale out on a 'chute before a plane crashes have a much higher chance
of survival.
So if it's a question of life and death, why haven't airlines done this already? To make more profit by carrying more passengers per plane? To save on the parachutes? That's just so crass. We should never allow them to save money just to profit more.
And even if they decide to pass part of the cost on to the passengers, I think it's well worth it. After all, the cost of the parachutes - when distributed among the thousands of passengers who will fly on a plane throughout its 'lifetime' - will be quite minimal.
So you want to jump from 30K?
http://www.batnet.c...ght/30Kprocess.html
Don't forget to shave! (Your Face) [dag, Apr 10 2002]
Redundant
http://www.halfbake.../Parachute_20option
[DrCurry, Oct 04 2004]
[link]
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Just put helium in the life-jacket gas cannister so you can float down to earth. |
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And how are 400+ passengers going to jump out of a jumbo jet flying at .85 mach at 35,000 ft? This is assuming they know the plane is going down ahead of time. Even if they are wearing parachutes, they're all goners. |
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Most commercial plane crashes happen in a very short time frame. The G forces would severely limit people's exit. They would all be pinned to the cabin ceiling. |
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By the way, there is nothing to stop you from wearing your own parachute on the plane. Just make sure to clear it with security ahead of time and expect to explain it over and over again. |
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//And how are 400+ passengers going to jump out of a jumbo jet flying at .85 mach at 35,000 ft? // |
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They wouldn't have to. When it stops flying at .85 mach at 35,000 ft is the point when the 400+ passengers have to start worrying. |
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I remember hearing most commercial plane crashes happen right around take-off or landing. Parachutes would be pretty useless in these flight phases. Military aircraft have ejection seats that can work at any altitude or orientation, but 400+ ejection seats would be a little heavy, and expensive. |
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dag's right. Planes very very rarely simply fall 35,000 feet out of the sky. It's especially rare when you subtract the incidents where the plane is bombed or shot out of the sky, in which case many or most of the people are already dead or dying anyway. There was even a plane that recently ran out of fuel at 35,000 feet or so over the Atlantic, and still landed safely. |
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The greatest cost is not the cost of the parachutes themselves, but the fuel expended to carry the extra weight all those 99.9999% (or whatever) of times they'll never be needed. |
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So as crass as it sounds, it really does come down to the fact that the extra money is judged to be more than the value of those very few lives that might be saved. But it's not the airlines that have made this crass decision; it's the passengers. If enough people judged the chance of saving even *their own* life (and the passenger will value his life more highly than the airline will) to be worth the extra cost, there would be at least one all-parachute airline. |
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Fact is, air travel is still relatively safe. No-one complains about not having air-bags on trains. |
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I know of at least three explosive decompressions
where most of the passengers survived: the DC-10 where the cargo door blew out over Canada, the Aloha Air 737 where the top of the forward fuselage came off, and the 747 that lost a cargo door over the Pacific. Did oxygen systems help in any of these cases, and would parachutes have helped? |
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I have been able to find no case of the emergency oxygen system on an airliner saving a single life or the
absence of one causing a fatality. That Aloha Air 737 was too low for it to be needed, (it occurred right after takeoff, at the beginning of the beverage service, which starts at 10,000 ft MSL).
The two cargo door losses depressurised the aircraft slowly enough that the emergency descent got them down before anyone died of hypoxia or anoxia. The closest I could come to an emergency O2-related
accident was one where the masks didn't drop as they should have, and there were no fatalities. I've asked an aeronautical engineer friend what he can find on the subject. |
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The DC-10 at Paris that crashed when the cabin floor collapsed onto the control cables, jamming them, because of a decompression in the cargo compartment, is a good example to study. It was just high enough for the pressure differential to cause the structural failure, but not for long enough for supplemental O2 to do anything more than keep
passengers conscious all the way to the ground, if (and that's a big *if*) the masks deployed and the passengers were able to overcome g forces and don them. |
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Airliners usually fly long flights at or below 40,000 ft. Although the time of useful consciousness is fairly short, death takes quite a bit longer. The emergency descent will get the airplane down into breathable air long before people run out of O2. Obviously, the
amount of O2 in the air increases constantly through the descent, stringing out the time of useful consciousness. After all, it's something like more than twice as long at 30,000 ft as it is at
40,000 ft. The assumption you'd have to make with a parachute is that you'd have had sufficient training (as the military gives) to allow you to overcome the effects of hypoxia long enough to deploy the 'chute. |
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None of this applies to military aircraft, particularly those aircraft with canopies, not windows. There are innumerable cases of the O2 system (either in normal or emergency mode) saving all aboard.
However, the assumption is that the pressurisation is going to fail, as most militaries require fighter and attack crew to use O2 throughout the flight. Aircraft with canopies have latches that hold the canopy down to the canopy rail, with a tube that fills with air
and seals the gap. A faulty latch or leaky tube can render a cockpit unpressurisable, which is why the crew of such aircraft are on O2 all of the time. In addition, there's an O2 bottle in every ejection seat,
to tide the crew over during the freefall until the baro altimeter takes control and throws the crewmember out of the seat and opens the parachute at about 15,000 ft MSL. In more extreme cases, with
aircraft cruising high enough that there are other dangers, the crew wear pressure suits, even though the cockpit is pressurised as described. |
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This keeps making me think of that bit in Catch 22 where Yossarian finds the parachute has been replaced by one share in Milo Minderbinder's franchise. |
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Perhaps the airlines could do something similar. |
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//there is nothing to stop you from wearing your own parachute on the plane. Just make sure to clear it with security ahead of time and expect to explain it over and over again//
How about homemade parachutes, can I? can I? can I?... |
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How about one really really big parachute strapped on top of the aeroplane? |
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Military flight testing does this (safety parachute on the plane) already during spin testing. If the pilot can not regain control of the spin, the chute pops, plane slows and pilot takes over again. Chute is released and plane continues normal flight (hopefully). They are really only meant to buy the pilot time and not safely 'land' the aircraft. |
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On a commercial aircraft it would have to be a BIG chute, but I supposed hitting the ground at 200 knots would be better than 600 knots. Probably still kill everyone. If you used the reduce falling time from the plane's big chute to dawn their personal chutes some might be able to jump from the higher altitude scenarios. |
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[thumbwax] A homemade parachute would be fun to make, as long as someone else tests it. |
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Dag is right. I've had the opportunity to jump from a 727 flying at minimum controllable airspeed. This was from the back of the plane, off the airstair, where I could be clear of the plane before I hit the airstream. The force was amazing. I can't imagine trying to leave through a side door. A jump like this from the airstair of a 727 is tough enough for an experienced skydiver. It could very well be fatal in and of itself for a non-jumper. Add in the training it takes to fly and land a parachute, and the danger goes up even more. (Bristolz, if you're reading this, now you know where I got my nickname) An escape system such as this would only add panic. |
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I assumed as much, actually, but now think a better username for you is, oh, say, [DB Cooper]. |
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Of course, I should like to know how you happened upon such an opportunity. |
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