Comment on Why don't passanger airplanes come with parachutes for people?
reddig33@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Or parachutes for the plane itself?
Comment on Why don't passanger airplanes come with parachutes for people?
reddig33@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Or parachutes for the plane itself?
Hildegarde@lemmy.world 1 year ago
It works for the Cirrus because that plane is tiny. A parachute big enough to safely land a commercial jet is not feasible.
If a commercial plane has a failure, say an engine failure as in the news story, the pilots with fly the plane with the other engine to a safe landing.
If the Cirrus has an engine failure it becomes a glider. If there’s no airports nearby you’ll have to ditch in a field somewhere. There is a lot less redundancy in general aviation.
If you’re a new pilot buying your first plane, having a parachute on the plane is a nice feature.
stoy@lemmy.zip 1 year ago
If a comercial plane has both engines fail and can’t be restarted, it also turnes into a glider, a small wind turbine will deploy and power basic instruments and controls, check this out:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gimli_Glider
strcrssd@kbin.social 1 year ago
It's worth noting that all commercial aircraft that operate over water (so, the vast majority, excepting very small commercial aircraft and four-engine behemoths) have ETOPS ratings. [ETOPS, Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETOPS#:~:text=ETOPS%20(%2Fi%CB%90%CB%88t%C9%92,%2Dengine%2Dinoperative%20flight%20conditions.) specifies the amount of time the aircraft can operate on a single engine, measured in minutes. ETOPS-180 is a pretty common rating.