Why don't commercial aircrafts have parachutes for passanger evacuation ?

Question

i keep asking myself why as i watch air crash investigation on NG and usually there are about 15 min before the plane crashes -probabay enough for many people to jump? and why can't pilots of cargo planes catapultate themselves?

Answer 1

why do you assume that they know they are going to crash before they do?  gliding to an accident site just doesn't happen in big planes (there are a couple of stories of gliding them in from up high)

the one that went down from fuel exhaustion of 3 miles short of the airport in long island sound a handful of years ago is a landmark story - 2000 feet above the groun, just silence - wasn't even time to brief the passengerrs.

others break up in the air - or run into mountains....

Answer 2

1.  By the time if becomes necessary to leave a passenger plane with a parachute, it's already aluminum confetti.

2.  At the altitudes a passenger plane flies, you'd freeze and/or die of oxygen starvation when you left the plane.

3.  Where are you going to store a few hundred parachutes on a passenger plane, and make them easy to get at?

4.  Children and babies?  What will they do?  

5.  Cargo planes, you expect the pilot and co-pilot to eject, and leave the rest of the crew behind?  Not enough ejection seats for everyone.

Answer 3

Liability.

Maybe if all passeners were willing to sign a waiver (like the one you have to sign before you do a skydiving course), maybe then and only then would the airlines do it, since all they would have to pay for is the parachute and the breathing apparatus. Budget airlines would definately consider it!

Without a 'waiver', Its cheaper to pay all the passengers' families in the law suit arising from a plane crash where all passengers die 'upon impact', than to have scores of people survive crippled and be able to testify to a JURY about how terrified they were and how they saw all the others die. The jury would fling the WHOLE BOOK at the airline.

Answer 4

All pretty good, accurate answers.....I'm thinking also, maybe from a public relations or perception of product point-of-view, how it would look to the traveling public:       "Hey!......they put PARACHUTES on their airplanes?.......this thing's, maybe, gonna CRASH?....what're we gonna need THEM for"?

Answer 5

Many reasons, which you have read above.  The main reasons are:

1.  Too heavy, and take up too much space.

2.  The average passenger would not be able to use the parachute.

3.  Most in-flight emergencies occur at altitudes too low for parachuting.

4.  The airplane is ruggedly built, and you are much safer inside.

Enjoy your flight.

Answer 6

Okay, where to start:

1.  Passengers cannot use parachutes: they lack training and imagine the trouble trying to get people to fit them!

2.  Many flights occur over water, this would essentiall be sentencing many survivors to death by drowning over a large are of water, and even over land the death and injury rate would be huge.  This is assuming they can even get chutes on and get out of the aircraft.

3.  Slipstream velocities are generally too high: massive injuries would occur, again assuming that people would even jump out.

4.  Passengers would have to egress from the rear of the aircraft to avoid impact on aircraft control surfaces and engines.  Even then there is still a lot of impact risk in modern jets.

5.  What of women and children and the elderly, disabled and obese?  

6.  How many people do you think can safely be evacuated in 15 mins (to use your example)?

7.  How would you determine who goes first?

8:  Most indidents occur above 10,000 feet, making breathing ( and the chaos from decompression) somewhat of an issue.  High altitute parachuting requires specialist training and equipment.  This is heavy, expensive, bulky and impractical for all those reasons.

9.  Ejection systems for cargo aircraft are inpractical: the structure of the aircraft is not designed for them, forget modifying existing aircraft, ejection seats are very traumatic, extrememly sophisticated and, as already noted, maintenance intensive.

Hope this helps!

Answer 7

Everyday passengers who fly on airliners are not trained to parachute out of a moving plane.  It takes training and practice.  Can you imagine the chaos inside the cramped cabin with a couple of hundred scared frightened crying people with children all struggling to put on parachutes and then all of them clawing their way over one another to get to the door crushing people too frightened to jump.  The whole idea is too "out there"  it would never work.

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When you ask "why can pilots of cargo planes cataputate themselves"  I'm assuming you meant why don't pilots of cargo planes have ejection seats?  Good question.  I suppose it's because really crashes and accidents are pretty rare and perhaps in their case with proper training the parachute would be the better way to go.  Ejector seats are tricky mechanisms that require heavy checks and maintenance.  An accidental ejection could ruin your day.

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Answer 8

Well...can you imagine a plane load of folks trying to put on 'chutes, stand up hook up shuffle to the door, and bail out in 15 minutes?

Huh. I'd pay to see that.