Dear all,First of all, my deepest sympathies for the victims, especially for the families and friends, who have lost their loved ones on the Air France flight, and may not be able to know exactly what happened. Maybe some people in aviation can shed light on this fact: why airlines do not carry parachutes onboard. Even the knowledge of having them would be a huge comfort and perhaps take away some of the fear of flying some people have. In cases where a crash is eminent, but the aircraft is to some extent controllable (for instance, by means of adjusting thrust), there is some time before the crash, does not act completely act out of order, and flies at certain altitude, there may be a chance for people to evacuate, and jump out (from a hatch in the bottom of the plane, or something, because I can imagine exiting from the emergency exits may lead to a fatal collision with the elevators and vertical stabilizer of the plane). Of course, in most crash cases, these conditions may not be met, but if they do, at least precious lives can be saved. Perhaps the parachutes could have some transmitter that sends out a distress signal, so evacuated people could be more easily located. I am sure there are very good reasons for not having this option when you go flying. I can think of some:1) The optimal conditions for jumping would almost never be met, so investigating in parachutes would not be worth it. 2) People are required to take the brace position when a crash or crash landing is eminent, in order to increase the chance of survival. If people where to evacuate in the air, it would certainly cause chaos. However, I wonder what would give a higher probability of survival: bracing during a crash, or the chaos that would result from people trying to get out. 3) It would probably be hard to judge at which point there should be an evacuation in the air, especially in the rush and stress of the situation. If there are small chances for survival and saving of the aircraft and preventing a crash in populated area (if the aircraft were to some extend controllable), would it be worth evacuating and letting the plane crash? Anyone? Thanks, Dirk L.

Not sure what this has to do with PMDG Products but.... you have answered your question, it's a bad idea in every possible way.1. The extra weight of carrying enough parachutes for everyone. 2. redesigning every aircraft so everyone could get out quickly without 'ANY' training on parachuting3.Most crashes happen close to the ground, if there was a mayor event in crz that would involve the flight crew calling for evacuation it's already too late.4. this is getting silly so I'm going to stop.In light of the Air France A330 that went down yesterday I can understand why someone may ask that question but no it's a very silly idea.Rob

Silly ideas result in good ideas. Ever been to a brainstorm session? Its all about creating silly ideas and then turn those ideas in not so silly ideas :)

I can understand you mooting the idea in the light of the recent Air France incident, which it seems could possibly have involved a mid air break up, but such an incident is rare indeed, and even in that case, parachutes would likely have been of little use.I wear a parachute when I fly gliders (in fact you can see the blue straps of the thing on my signature picture), largely because the seat is designed to accommodate one, but also because the danger of collision is a higher probability when in a glider, as you are often in close proximity to other aircraft. But, the chances are high that if I was ever unfortunate enough to lose a wing from a collision, it would not be of any use. I regard it as a very expensive cushion to be honest.First it is likely that the aircraft would be wildly out of control if damaged enough to make me consider bailing out, which would make a clean exit from the aircraft difficult; second there would be little time to effect such a bail out unless up above somewhere like 15,000 feet. I personally know of three fellow glider pilots who've had to use them, but I've known many more pilots who never even got the chance to bail out and died in crashes, which gives you some indication of their relative merit. Of the three pilots I know who have successfully effected bailouts, one jumped from an aircraft that was straight and level but which had lost aileron control owing to a control linkage failure, and the other two didn't even jump out, their aircraft disintegrated when it was struck by lightning.Parachutes really require training to use properly. Although I was not keen on the idea, I did make one parachute jump to get used to the things, but I still think the chances of me using one successfully in an incident would be marginal. To give you an idea of how tricky they can be to use, when I first put a parachute on, right away the instructor pointed out a mistake I was making - I stepped into the leg straps but before tightening them, I went to fasten the strap across my chest - that's a big no-no with a parachute, since if you accidentally deploy the chute, it can blow back and the chest strap will ride up to your neck and throttle you. So you can see that you need to know what you are doing just putting the thing on, let alone operating it.To even be remotely of use on an airliner, the passengers would have to be wearing the chute throughout the flight, which apart from the fact that it would probably sew panic among the passengers to be putting such stuff on, would also make boarding a nightmare as far as time and cabin announcements were concerned, and what about infants and small children, or the elderly, disabled and infirm?Then you have the speed and altitude to consider; bailing out of an airliner traveling at 500 mph would almost certainly be incredibly dangerous, with a very good chance you'd hit the engines, wings or empennage as the slipstream grabbed you. Such an impact would almost certainly kill you, and at the least it would severely injure you and possibly render you unconscious, you'd be tossed around like a rag doll too, which would not be good for you at all. Then there is the question of oxygen and temperature, jump out of an airliner at 35,000 feet in your holiday T-Shirt and say hello to temperatures of -60 and an extremely rarified atmosphere, which would also be likely to render you unconscious and thus unable to deploy the chute, which alright, could have a barostatic release mechanism, but those ain't cheap. With upwards of 200 people jumping in a panicked fashion from an airliner, the thing would rapidly go out of trim even if it was in stable flight as the weight shifted the centre of gravity, and I can't imagine the flight deck crew being heroic enough to welcome that prospect. You'd also have to have portable oxygen supplies for the passengers and some means to depressurise the aircraft, prior to opening the exits.There is only really one known incidence of a person making an unplanned bail out from an airliner, that being hijacker DB Cooper, who I think went out of the rear airstairs exit at low speed and altitude. It is thought that he did not survive, although nobody knows for sure since he was never apprehended, but some of his ransom money was found in a river many years later, indicating that things did not go well. Contrary to popular belief, landing with a parachute is not the equivalent of jumping off a wall, it is the equivalent of jumping off a moving bus backwards, and very easy to injure yourself without the correct training on how to land correctly, and on suitable terrain. Over the sea it would be extremely likely to result in drowning.Which brings us to another aspect; the money. Parachutes are not cheap. Even basic lifesaver backpack types of the kind I use are fairly pricey, and the expense does not end with the purchase price. Each parachute has an info card in a little velcro pocket on the pack. This tracks its inspection record, and you have to check that before flight for legal reasons, which would mean the cabin crew would have to do that each day on up to 500 of the things if they were on an airliner. Parachutes have to be regularly opened and repacked following an inspection, to ensure the shroud lines and material for the canopy is in good condition, that's expensive to have done and is a legal requirement too.Modern parachutes are not particularly heavy, but 200 or more of them would certainly add up to a fair old weight, so that's another minus point.So, they are expensive, impractical for most circumstances, not suited to all passengers, tricky to adopt, not a guarantee for survival anyway, and probably likely to be of no use throughout their serviceable life since mid air break ups are rare things. For all those reasons, you won't ever see them on airliners.On the other hand, if a ballistic chute recovery system could be designed for use with an airliner using multiple chutes, like you can get for a few GA aircraft and sort of similar to how astronauts would return their capsule to Earth, then than might be a more practical notion, but you'd need a hell of a big chute to suspend 747 from. If the will was there to design such a system, it could maybe incorporate explosive bolts to jettison heavy parts such as the engines, but I suspect it would be ridiculously complex and expensive to try and pull off.Al

Thanks a lot for the detailed response. I sort of figured it would not be possible (just wishful thinking). You make it perfectly clear. Dirk L.

A passenger aircraft is usually a number of tubes joined together to form the fuselage how about each of these forming an escape pod with multiple shutes, the equivelent of lifeboats on a ship? I know the technology isn't here yet to do such a thing but once we get to aircraft that can carry 1000+ people if one of these went down would we consider it an acceptable risk and loss of life or would there be a backlash for smaller less economical aircraft to spread the risk over several aircraft if such an idea weren't followed up?Stuart C

I would have to say the don't have parachutes in a plane is 1: expensive2 The plane would basically have to be level for a while for people to jump out and if was level then the pilots do have control of the plane so might as well stick with the plane3. like in the airfrance case, you would be safer in the plane because when they come to find you, they can find the group of people that is near the plane and instead each person.Taylor