No Stupid Questions

Parachutes require pretty specific conditions to be able to use, and they require a fair amount of know-how. Expecting random passengers to be able to operate a parachute at all is basically a losing battle, and if you had people jumping out of planes that were on their way down, you'd have a lot more people dying (speculation but I'd wager money on it) than if they just stayed in the plane. Plus it'd be a horrible look for the airline - even worse than a plane crashing and killing everyone on it - if they had dead people raining down over cities and whatnot because they jumped and didn't properly deploy their chute, or deployed it too quickly, or didn't jump at the right time and got hit by the plane or any number of other possible problems.

Fighter jets and the like have ejection seats that specifically propel the pilot away from the plane before deploying the chute, and recreational (or military) planes that people are jumping from are designed for that purpose, and are moving a lot slower than commercial airliners. Opening the door on a plane to let people jump would cause more problems than keeping them on the plane. (People getting sucked out the door and the like.) Getting passengers safely clear of a plane that's going down unrecoverably would be basically impossible.

1. Passengers airplane often fly too high and too fast to safely parachute from
2. Passengers need to be trained to parachute
3. Planes rarely crash

• To jump out, they would need to open the doors. There would be problems with decompression at above 10K.
• You have to deal with people unable to use parachutes. Children, elderly, disabled, afraid of heights, and panicked.
• There's an assumption an airplane remains level enough. If it's spinning or nose down, trying to reach an exit is another problem.
• If jumping out ahead of the wing, there's a risk of getting sucked into the engines.
• Parqchutes are bulky. Trying to get them out of storage and distribute them to a couple hundred untrained people is a tall order.
• Putting on a parachute, correclty strapping it, knowing when and where to pull the cord, and knowing how to land without breaking bones, hitting tree branches, or ditching into water. These are all issues you can't teach during preflight safety instruction.

Overall, everyone would be better off staying put, not panicking, and hoping a plane and trained pilots can get everyone on the ground, safely.

Half as interesting just did a video on this

https://youtu.be/3i_RyiQ3-Ak?si=DRWUQw0FHnHRDsts

That question got me thinking: In which major disaster would there have been time to get people off board and deploy parachutes? Any major disaster I can think of happened so fast or unbeknownst to anyone on board, or in unfavorable conditions for parachutes, i.e. takeoff or landing.

The only one coming to mind is the Gimli glider and that turned out fine.

Come on. When you have companies like Boeing unwilling to even build a plane right, you'd actually expect them to add parachutes and not cheap out on them?
Let's be serious here.

How do you envisage it working in practice? If a plane had a disaster that will make it crash in a matter of minutes, people wouldn't form an orderly line to jump out with their parachutes. And if the malfunction is not making the plane crash in the next 5 minutes, the plane can probably land safely at the nearest airport.

"okay everyone, stand up calmly and put on your parachute while the plane falls out of the sky.. once everyone is done with that, and all parachutes are secure, we will begin an orderly de-boarding.. thank you for your attention - while the plane falls out of the sky for some reason.."

I've seen a concept of an airplane that can eject sections of it's hull, each equipped with a large parachute. This can solve the problem of "how to put parachutes on each passenger including kids, disabled and panicked and teach them how to use it". Also it doesn't require the plane to maintain certain height, speed or angle for parachuting.

But of course it will add extra weight to carry, because not only they'll need to install big parachutes, but also ejection system and something to seal off ejectable sections.

Cuz based on the type of accidents, it probably wouldn't make sense. It is just adding extra cost.

https://youtu.be/3i_RyiQ3-Ak

Instead of a regular backpack can I just bring a parachute as my carryon?

I literally thought about this on my flight a couple weeks ago, if the plane loses power in the air most people in the plane are just gonna go down with it. I imagine most if not all passengers have no idea how to properly operate a parachute.

Or parachutes for the plane itself?

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/exclusive-video-small-plane-parachute-landing-cirrus-hauppauge-long-island/1400295/

Because imagine trying to, not only, put your own on. But then getting your kids into them...

Weight. Chutes are heavy and means more fuel use and less range with less people. Which means more flights, which means more planes, crew, maintenance, parts, landing fees etc.

It would be easier to strap a large parachute to the plane which has been done on small aircraft