Taking this into account , spending billions of dollars on a contraption that would result in at least a few guaranteed fatalities from the pilots and remaining crew , plus the general costs being ridiculously high for a very unrealistic situation , it makes sense that this idea was rejected .
There is another overlooked part of this idea , and that is the “ anatomy ” ( for lack of a better word ) of these airplanes . Aircraft are built in such a way that if you removed parts of it the rest would completely disassemble . This also brings into consideration the other systems of the aircraft , like electrical and plumbing . Let us say that for the other 10.99 million flights nothing went wrong .
Having an aircraft designed to be taken apart would likely create other safety problems that could cause significantly more common issues than the concern of crashing .
Yet one more thought - if everything else goes according to plan , the cabin detaches successfully , and the parachutes and rubber boat things open , that introduces the question of where this 72,000 + lb . machine is going to land ? Best case , it would land in a remote location with mostly flat ground and no people . Unfortunately , there are not very many places where there is completely uninhabited land that is flat enough to have a plane land safely .
What would happen if the pilots had to disconnect the cabin somewhere like Paris , which has an extremely dense population of around 20,025 people per kilometer ( km )? This means that not only would the landing be perilous for the people aboard the airplane due to the buildings , but also , people on the ground would be in extreme danger of being crushed by chunks of airplane .
Even though there are a bunch of incredibly unsafe aspects to this idea , I do think it would be cool to see airplanes with improved technology , to better protect passengers in the rare event of an emergency landing — but maybe just not this one !
WINTER 2024 — ISSUE NO . 05 17