An aviation engineer has proposed a new design approach to aviation safety that could save the lives of thousands of airline passengers in plane crashes. The concept involves redesigning airplanes with a detachable cabin that ejects during flight emergency situations to touch down on land or water safely.
According to aviation engineer Tatarenko Vladimir Nikolaevich, who unveiled the new design concept after three years of development, his work was inspired by the conviction that it is possible to make flying safer by evolving airplane designs that offer optimal solutions in emergency situations.
Nikolaevich proposes redesigning planes with detachable cabins that can eject during emergency and drop passengers safely by parachutes.
"Surviving in a plane crash is possible. [But] while aircraft engineers all over the world are trying to make planes safer, they can do nothing about the human factor."
The detachable cabin is equipped with parachutes that open automatically once the cabin detaches from the aircraft. The video demonstrates how the cabin could eject at different stages of flight -- take off, mid-flight, and landing --- and drop passengers safely on land or on water.
The detachable cabin for the prototype also includes storage space for passengers' luggage beneath the cabin. This is to ensure that airline passengers do not lose valuable personal belongings.
In addition to parachutes attached to the roof, the detachable cabin also has huge rubber tubes at the bottom which inflate to cushion the impact at landing. The tubes also help to keep the cabin afloat on water.
"The existing technology of using of Kevlar and carbon composites for fuselage, wings, flaps, spoilers, ailerons, tail will be used during the design. It allows to partly compensate the weight of parachute system," Tatarenko explained.