why don't they have parachutes on commerical planes?

Question

If a commerical plane is having trouble in the sky, then an option is to strap on parachutes and dive down to safty rather than "going down with the ship" or in this case...plane.

Answer 1

It is hard enough to get out of an airliner on the ground when the plane is standing still at the gate now imagine 300 idiots that did not listen to the flight attendant's briefing trying to figure out how to use a parachute for the first time then imagine that the airplane is moving around tossing you up and down and back and front now we come to the fact that in a pressurized aircraft you can not open the doors until it is depressurized oh yeah and you are flying at 400 MPH hope you don't hit the tail on your way out. More people would die attempting to exit the aircraft than if they rode it in during an emergency landing!!!! As for the guy who mentioned ejection pods your just an idiot if every passenger had an ejection pod the plane would weigh too much it would never get off the ground and if it did manage to get off the ground its performance would be so badly degraded it would be more likely to crash.

Answer 2

Due to the lack of training most people have with parachuting, the risk posed exceeds the benefit. A jet aircraft would have to be slowed to close to its stall speed and depressurized. An orderly exit would then have to proceed after everyone on the plane donned the gear. The altitude would have to be not much more than 15000 ft or oxygen would have to be used as well along with protective clothing from the cold at altitude. Even someone trained in the use of the gear would find jumping from a jet airliner challenging. On the other hand, I think that wearing a chute is a great idea for a single engine pilot flying at night. I used to wear a parachute flying jumpers. There was always the risk that a parachute would open in the plane and drag the jumper out damaging the plane. At night, a single engine pilot would likely not be able to see to pick out a safe landing area. Bailing out as an option is comforting as long as no harm would be posed to people on the ground by the abandoned aircraft. The pod idea for airliners makes more sense due to the large number of people on the aircraft that simply could not follow through such as small children and disabled people. I read somewhere that such designs have been contemplated.

Answer 3

Good question. As far as I know, the only time a parachute would come in handy is if there was an emergency where the crew had enough time to get the plane below 15,000 feet, and slowed to about 175 knots. The reason for this is the human body can only sustain so much force, and jumping out of a jet aircraft moving at 500 knots would just about rip you apart inside of your body. Another problem with parachutes is it takes time to evacuate hundreds of people. Generally, if there is a mid-air disaster, the plane is destroyed or disabled in a matter of seconds (TWA flight 800 for example). Statistically speaking, I believe you have a 1 in 69,000 chance of being on an airplane that is going to crash, and 80% of all airplane crashes are survivable. In my opinion, the airlines that fly these planes do not see it as a smart investment to load every passenger plane with parachutes, because of the very small chances that it would even come in handy.

Answer 4

The cost factor to the airlines aside, lets say their management decided to give it a try. Even if they equipped their airliners with them, the idea wouldn't work.

The average Joe Passenger could kill or seriously injure themselves trying to use a parachute without any experience with one. Having been a skydive pilot for several years, even those who are PLANNING to make a jump have enough issues! There are many reason why this idea won't fly including:

The aircraft must be going slow enough to allow the doors to be opened and a jump to be executed. The way airliner doors are designed, it's prohibitively difficult to impossible to open them inflight, even if the cabin pressurization were dumped.

Using a "rig" (parachute) is not as simple a strapping it on a jumping! One must be trained on how to properly wear and use the equipment. First time skydivers who do not do a tandem jump (strapped to an instructor) but jump solo must take Accelerated Free Fall classes of about 8 hours worth of instruction on parachute operation before they make the jump so they are versed in how to use the equipment. Even then, jumpmasters exit the aircraft with the AFF student and are attending them during freefall until they deploy their chute. AFF student also wear radios so they they can be coached through their canopy maneuvering and into landing as necessary.

There are any number of 'malfunctions' that can occur during a jump. The jumper must be aware of and know how to correct them when they happen. The chute may not inflate properly, the lines could become tangled. If it's a bad enough malfunction, cutting away the main chuteand deployment of the reserve chute may be necessary.Think they could figure out how to do that?

Landing is another problem. Unless the jumper is experienced enough to know how to control the canopy and steer their way to a proper landing site, they could impact any number of structures. Even if they were lucky enough to be over an open field, they need to know how to 'flare' for landing or they risk serious injury.

Also, can you imagine 100-300 people rushing the door just trying to get out?! These are just the main points why parachutes for airline pax are an unrealistic but I think you get the idea...

Answer 5

This really ought to be in the FAQs. It gets asked about 3 times a week. I'll admit though that the clueless and insane answers do get a bit more interesting as time goes on. Criminal negligence for no escape pods?? Really! Not even AF One has that for the Prez! LOL! That is a new one, though!

OK, on to the real reasons:

1. At altitude, you'd freeze to death instantly upon exiting the aircraft. The temp is typically -40F to -70F. At normal cruise of 500 - 650 MPH, every bone in your body would be shattered when you hit the slipstream; most people's arms and legs would be ripped off by flailing injuries. Think of all of the crushed and frozen arms, legs, and bodies with unopened parachutes attached hitting the ground at terminal velocity -- about 125 MPH.

2. Most accidents happen during the transition period of takeoff and landing. You're too close to the ground for parachutes to be effective and there isn't enough time to get everyone out anyway.

3. There are no doors on an airliner that can be opened in flight, so there is no way to get out anyway.

4. Parachutes need to be donned before getting on the airplane. You'd need to show up 5 hours before departure to get everyone suited up. Connections would be 5 - 7 hours.

5. The bulk of the parachutes would require the airlines to remove half of the seats to make room. Add the cost of parachute riggers and staff to help passengers put them on, and airfares would quadruple at least.

6. The typical airline passenger isn't trained in the use of a parachute; it would be akin to handing a 5-year-old a loaded AK-47.

Answer 6

Aside from the impracticalities and dangers of equipping 300+ people with parachutes, and the fact they are useless at cruising heights / speeds - the simple answer is that airline companies dont have to provide them.

There is no legislation in place that states that passengers need to be equipped with parachutes. Aviation law dictates that the probably of a catstrophic loss of a civil aircraft (that would most likely kill everyone on board) must be below a certain value per every flying hour. This value is so low (1 x10 to the -9 per flying hour), this negates the need for parachutes.

If this law changed, so that parachutes were required - this brings into play the discussed issues of training passengers, heavier aircraft, less space, increased air fares, etc.

Military aircraft are bound by similar regulations, however not as strictly (1x10 to the -6 probablity per flying hour), and as the military tend to operate at lower levels and come equipped with more advanced crew egress systems - it becomes more feasilble to give everyone parachutes.

The bottom line is, airline companies will do the bare minimum to ensure that they comply with the various safety regulations that they have to adhere to - and even if parachutes didnt create more problems then they would solve, they dont have to proide them. Simple as!

Answer 7

I suggest you work your way up to that parachute. Before you jump out of your next airliner, traveling at say
500-600 miles an hour at a height of 30,000ft, try jumping out of your car at 65 mph at a height of 3ft...Now take that car to the south pole at, say, 50*below zero, try jumping out again, this time in a snowstorm with winds of maybe
125 mph...when you get really good at this...then we'll talk parachutes, at 600 mph, 70*below zero, 30,000 ft altitude..
oh, lets not forget, you must hold your breath for at least
20 minutes while doing the above, because there is no Oxegen at 30,000 ft......

Answer 8

If the plane is going down. And everyone dies, then the passengers can't sue. But if you jump out and you break your leg or something, the airline company doesn't want to get sued and lose an airplane. They'd rather take everyoen down with the plane. lol
Or maybe if the airplane is going to the ground, that means they dont' have control to slow down the airplane to open the door to jump out. There are probably many circumstancial reasons.

Answer 9

they arent built to be able to have 300 people dive from them. Also, if planes have "trouble" in the sky the plane can usally land safely however in the case it doesnt the plane would be out of control barreling toward earth so lepaing from it would prove difficult.

Answer 10

Commercial planes are much much higher than planes wich people jump out of.There is no oxygen at the altitude where commercial planes are/it's to cold. That is why they have those oxygen things that drop from the cieling during an emergency.