What alternative to aluminium can to be used to build air-planes that would preserve lives during a crash?

Question

I KEEP WONDERING IF ANOTHER ELEMENT THAT IS AS STRONG AS STEEL BUT LIGHT AS ALUMINIUM CANNOT BE FORMULATED OR DOES NOT EXIT FOR AIR-PLANE CONSTRUCTION. AN ELEMENT THAT WILL NOT FRAGMENT TO BITS ON IMPACT WITH EARTH. THIS WILL INCREASE THE CHANCES OF SURVIVAL IN THE EVENT OF A PLANE CRASH.

Answer 1

There is already fewer fatal plane crashes than at any time in the last 20 years. Most lives are saved by all the preventive maintenance performed on the aircraft, and all the training that the people in commercial aviation receive. Aviation is about preventing the crash in the first place, not trying to make planes crash-proof. That simply isn't practical.

If you really want to save lives, then please ask the same question about cars. Tens of thousands die every year in car crashes compared to the few hundred that die in airplane crashes. It seems that people start to care when 200 people die in a single incident, but what about those that die in cars by the ones and twos? You are a million more times likely to die in a car crash on the way to the airport than on the flight itself. It isn't until enough people die on the road that anything is done about it. At least in aviation they are constantly working to prevent accidents.

Answer 2

Titanium is as light as aluminum but strong as steel and the only aircraft that was ever built out of it entirely is the SR-71, a very expensive aircraft that was just as destroyed as a regular aircraft when it crashed.

Also composite materials are working their way into aircraft primary structure, the 787 will have an all composite (carbon fibre, for americans its graphite) fuselage. This will eliminate fatigue problems associated with aluminum and allow greater strength-to-weight, but will not enable an aircraft to survive an impact.

Old regulations required cabin seats, galleys, and lavs to withstand a 9G crash, but new ones are 16G. Pretty incredible when you think the average person will weigh 3000lbs at that G force.

Even if the aircraft was strong enough to survive any crash (if it could fly) the occupant would still have to be slowed from flying speed to a halt in a long enough time to prevent injury and death.

Flying is by far the safest mode of travel. If motorvehicle fatalities were wartime casualty reports the government would be overthrown.

Answer 3

there are many great answers here. as far as materials go not much on saving lives. there are 3 impacts in a moving accident ie ; auto, airplane, etc. #1- the Vehicle or Aircraft strikes another object,ground another plane or auto. # 2 the passengers in the vehicle strike the vehicle, ie ; dash back of seat window seat belts. and #3 the internal organs an/or brain strike the inside of the body or skull. or another object strikes them.it is these traumas that are most detrimental to the human body. these are the energies that must be absorbed else where for the person(s) to survive. that is why cars now have crumple zones so the energy of an impact is absorbed by the vehicle and not transferred to the passengers therein. but with an aircraft i am not sure what with the mass and altitude and speed what could be done.

Answer 4

A similar question is often asked: Why can't we make planes out of the same stuff that the Black Box (flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder) is made out of. Here's my canned response to that question:

It's not indestructable. It's protected mainly by the crushable cabin of the aircraft. Only the data recorder mechanism is hardened. If you built an aircraft to those standards, it would never leave the ground. Imagine an M1A Abrams tank with 3 foot wings.

Even if you had some magic material that was totally indestructible and light enough, the passengers would still all be killed. When the aircraft crashed, it would come to an instant stop but the passengers would keep moving at 500 MPH. They'd but cut in half by the seatbelts which would act like cheese slicers. The body parts would then be smashed into the seat or bulkhead in front of them and all of the guts and goo would spray all over the inside of the aircraft. Nice visual, eh?

OK, back to this question.

As another one pointed out, far more people are killed in car crashes than aircraft crashes every year. The annual average number of deaths in all aviation accidents combined world-wide is probably less than 2,000. Yet over 45,000 people die on US roads alone and world-wide numbers probably run into the millions.

Upwards of 60% of those fatalities are drug or alcohol related! You'd save FAR more lives pressing your lawmakers to further tighten the rules on DUI/DWI and step up enforcement than you'd ever save trying to innovate in the aviation industry. Air travel -- even with the current terrorist threat -- is STILL the safest means of travel, bar none. You're 10,000 times more likely to be killed by a drunk driver (of which our illustrious US President is one, by the way!) than you are to die between your arrival at the departure airport and departure from the arrival airport.

Answer 5

Maybe an interwoven plastic and fiber based shell encasing a nonflammable compresses gas or light gel that is fire retardant?
Have the inner layer (where the passengers are) a smooth thin plastic, the middle layer comb shaped, (like a bee hive's comb)
Fill this layer with fire retardant gel, foam, or gas. The outer layer will be woven plastic, and fiber. The woven plastic could be for strength, and flexibility, the fiber could be to absorb the gel,gas,or foam. That way in case of a crash, the inner shell is forced to crush the inner combs into the fiber/plastic shell, there by allowing the woven plastic to bend without breaking, and the fiber absorbs the chemicals that will prevent sparks or fires from spreading. Just a basic idea with lots to still work out but hope it helps.

Answer 6

Anything that falls from miles up will smash to bits. Anything that crashes at high speed will disintegrate. You cant design a plane that will protect passengers and putting your head forward in a crash situation is ridiculous unless it happens prior to full take off. The only protection would be from designing the aircraft to split into sealed sections with parachutes to bring these sections down much slower. Technically this could be done but would be too expensive.

Answer 7

there is no material that would prevent more lives from being lost in a plane crash

titanium is widely used as are advanced composite materials as they are stronger and lighter. they are also much more costly and more difficult to come by so are generally not used on bigger planes due to cost. they are often used on fighters though.

a plane hitting the ground at 500 miles an hour will break up into bits no matter what it was made of unless it was made of cotton wool but then it wouldnt fly anyway!

Answer 8

If a plane had a problem at altitude why not a series of parachutes?

some chutes to slow it down (if the pilot could not already do so) and then a series of other chutes to bring the plane down vertically.

Surely a hard landing with parachutes would be better than crash landing at 100mph + ?

Answer 9

well the answer to ur question is YES there do exist such materials named as "ADVANCED COMPOSITE MATERIALS" which have their strenght almost equal to steel and have a great flexibility in relation to aluminium.. such material if used can give upto 40% weight savings on the airframe structure.. but these materials are WAY TOO ERXPENSIVE to be used on the commercial jetliners and they require a high time maintenance which can be very costly and higly skilled labour... such materials are used on the advanced airforce bombers like the B2 ,F-117and the blackbird and their outer coloring is mainly black to absorb the radiations which fall on them so that the enemy radar cannot spot them so they are also called stealth bombers


i had experienced such a bomber when it had to land on the airforce base i use to work at.. they had called upon special team to work on it and it was a great experience to see such a masterpiece of technology :)

Answer 10

Even if the plane survived, the occupants would not.
Going from 300mph to 0mph at the time of impact tends to have fairly detrimental effects on the human body. You'd have an intact plane full of corpses.