Passengers on airliners do not have parachutes...why?

a reply to: Catacomb

I think you misunderstand me, it simply isn't viable. The whole concept of flying would lose it's viability by imposing the methods you suggest. Back to the days of only the rich flying? Yep. Not even sure if it is a practical option for the rich, neer mind with mass transport. What needs to happen perhaps in your world, is that everyone has their own personal aircraft. Might work then

a reply to: Catacomb

I can think of one reason - people don't know how to use the parachutes properly (Can you imagine telling a kid that they need to pull a lever at the right altitude, otherwise they will most likely die?).

Another would be upkeep - Say a plane has 150 people on it, and each person has to deploy their parachutes. Chances are, one or more will fail to deploy. Who ends up getting sued for the deaths of those that couldn't deploy? The airline.

Finally, there's the environment to contend with - imagine a terrorist attack on a plane. How many people would get out of their seats, and rush to the nearest door to jump, when there's a guy watching with a weapon? Or, imagine that the plane is suddenly going down - how many people would be able to move about the plane to the doors? Even something as simple as a fire would disorient anyone that was trying to find an exit; I would think the parachute would complicate things in that scenario.

-fossilera

For smaller planes agree with parachutes, but for all planes, they should be wearing helmets. My ex husbands family own and operate interior flights and they said that the accidents that occurred may not even have had fatalities if they were wearing helmets, that this would save lives.

Large section of the plane jettison... never work, you would have to loose the top half of the plane for you to eject and the second the wind got into the cabin the plane would come apart at the seems before any ejection system could get the seats out of the plane.

as planes are built now, its about as safe as it can get..

For the record, I despise flying commercial I hate it so much I will stay up for 2-3 days before I fly commercial just so I sleep through it.

I never cared for it, but after my time as an FE not being on the flight deck terrifies me, partly because of my training.

Day 1 of sim training my instructor tapped me on the shoulder said look to your left... those two are trying to kill you don't let them do it. So I am a little biased about the general competence of many pilots. :p

a reply to: Unity_99
If the helmets incorporated oculus rift or other types of virtual media you may even convince long flight passengers to wear them .

a reply to: Catacomb

In which case you've added so much weight that either planes are now impossibly huge, or you get one 30 pound bag per person before you're maxed out, and it takes four flights to go the same distance that one flight can get today.

Air travel is incredibly safe. If you look at the statistics of the last few years, the number of accidents is so low as to be almost 0 on commercial flights. It's almost as safe as it can possibly be made.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

originally posted by: Catacomb
Flying is as common as driving a bus to school, so it should be as safe as that, as well.

Flying is already safer than taking the bus.

Indeed - in fact, I was just perusing the BBC - England section today and saw half a dozen stories from around the country detailing fatal collisions, all in all some dozen or so people dead, including a bus crash - all in a single day.

As you have said, statistically speaking flying is far safer than any other mode of transport. You can only mitigate risk so far and I think, when it comes to aircraft, they do everything that is possible.

It simply isn't feasible or practical to have ejector seats, parachutes etc.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
Air travel is incredibly safe. If you look at the statistics of the last few years, the number of accidents is so low as to be almost 0 on commercial flights. It's almost as safe as it can possibly be made.

Thanks for dashing my hopes of trying an ejection seat.

a reply to: Jonjonj

I guess I'm the only one on ATS to have used a parachute in an emergency. Ejections are NOT for the untrained like airline passengers particularly the physically unfit. I was a fit 40 years old who ran 5 miles about every other day not a cubical dweller.

When the ejection sequence is initiated you start by pulling about 14 Gs for about 2.5 seconds which launches you 243 ft above the airplane where you and your seat part ways. A small ballistically opened chute is deployed followed by your main parachute. Depending on your height at the time of the ejection will determine your time before you will hit the ground. I ejected at ground level and about 90 mph so my time was maybe a second.

I sustained a compress spine, a ruptured diaphragm, a broken ankle and second degree burns. My crewman was unhurt. This was at 90 mph not 400 like passenger planes fly.

Let me list a couple of considerations.

Do you want to jump into a wind blast of over 400 mph?

Do you know how to put on a parachute harness and how long would take?

How would you exit the airplane safely?

How would you exit without striking the wings or engines.

How long would it take for an old woman/man or woman with children to prepare to jump?

What would you do with a person who hesitates to jump?

What would you do if you had a parachute malfunction?

Just a few consideration to think about.

originally posted by: buddah6
What would you do with a person who hesitates to jump?

To quote a country song......

Put a boot in their ass, it's the American way.

originally posted by: buddah6
a reply to: Jonjonj

I guess I'm the only one on ATS to have used a parachute in an emergency. Ejections are NOT for the untrained like airline passengers particularly the physically unfit. I was a fit 40 years old who ran 5 miles about every other day not a cubical dweller.

When the ejection sequence is initiated you start by pulling about 14 Gs for about 2.5 seconds which launches you 243 ft above the airplane where you and your seat part ways. A small ballistically opened chute is deployed followed by your main parachute. Depending on your height at the time of the ejection will determine your time before you will hit the ground. I ejected at ground level and about 90 mph so my time was maybe a second.

I sustained a compress spine, a ruptured diaphragm, a broke ankle and second degree burns. My crewman was unhurt. This was at 90 mph not 400 like passenger planes fly.

Let me list a couple of considerations.

Do you what to jump into a wind blast of over 400 mph?

Do you know how to put on a parachute harness and how long would take?

How would you exit the airplane safely?

How would you exit without striking the wings or engines.

How long would it take for an old woman/man or woman with children to prepare to jump?

What would you do with a person who hesitates to jump?

What would you do if you had a parachute malfunction?

Just a few consideration to think about.

I fail to see how this is relevant to anything I have said, perhaps you meant to say it to someone else?

a reply to: Jonjonj
It wasn't directed at you...SORRY!

a reply to: buddah6
Absolutely no problem sir.

a reply to: Jonjonj

My mouse sneezed...LOL!

to be honest I would rather take my chances in a plane crash than jump out of an airline..

I have 26 jumps to my name, I had planned on doing a civilian halo jump before I managed to herniate a disc, but I have also read a couple account of fighter jocks ejecting at a high rate of speed.

Odd of being unconscious when impact of the wind hits; very high... any loose clothing will be gone, ripped off several items will be embedded in your skin from the winds impact, now you are in free fall probably unconscious most of your clothes are gone and at this point the cold factors in. figure roughly 35 degree temp drop per 10,000 ft of elevation. So if you jumped out at 40k feet you have frostbite on most of your digits before you reach anything resembling a height you can pull your pilot chute.

Lastly... because your most likely unconscious and freezing to death you have to rely on an AAD to deploy the chute for you, most skydivers get their stuff checked on a regular basis and there is still a failure rate on these devices, so imagine how "rigorous" the inspection would be on these things when a plane might only be down for 30-40 mins in between flights.

No thanks, Ill happily take my time in the seat praying to St Jude for a little assistance.

I wouldn't mind seeing them fit multiple parachutes to the aircraft itself that automatically deploy to at least slow down a plane in emergencies. They already have them for smaller planes so its only matter upsizing for larger aircraft. The real issue is cost against lives saved. Will it be worth it.

a reply to: glend

To be honest, at this point, no. They would have to be massive, or you would have to have five or six of them. I've seen 747s go off the ground at over 800,000 pounds of weight. That means you'd need a bunch of parachutes to even slow it down.

And the safety factor is so high right now that it's not even funny. In 2013, the passenger count between 15 airlines, in the millions, was 2,493.6. That's just between the top fifteen airlines around the world. That same year, there were 29 recorded accidents, with a total of 265 fatalities. The worst accident of the year killed 50 people. The 10 year average was 720 fatalities.

So we have billions of passengers flying a year, with a few hundred fatalities a year on average. That's an incredible safety record. It's almost not possible to get it any better than that.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Excellent points Zaphod58, sounds like flying is safer than being at home. But if I was a zillionaire my private plane would have escape capsule (aka F111) just for peace of mind as I've always been very fearful of flying.

a reply to: glend

Oh no harm in having the extra safety in that case. Personally my private plane would be something like this:

airportjournals.com.host01.cfdynamics.com...

originally posted by: Zaphod58
That's an incredible safety record. It's almost not possible to get it any better than that.

Unless they make planes out of the same thing the "black boxes" are made out of.....