The tragic private jet crash in Florida over the weekend has had a lot of people asking questions about airplane safety.
One person with an interesting take is rapper BlocBoy JB, who questioned why planes don’t have parachutes. “Too much money being made off these planes for m*fers not to have parachutes,” he wrote in a post shared on social media.
There is actually a very good reason why passenger planes and jets don’t have parachutes
The short answer to BlocBoy’s question is: because it wouldn’t matter. In a previous Guardian Q&A with flight experts, it was explained why. Basically, it takes too much time to prep a parachute and you’d likely crash before finishing. “It is most unlikely that a parachute will be of use if a passenger plane crashes,” one specialist explained.
“Even a plane-load of active military parachutists takes several minutes of reasonably steady flight to exit. Parachuting takes nerve, skill, and strength,” the specialist added. “One has to force oneself into a 150 mph slipstream, hold a posture that stops one tangling with the parachute as it opens, steer clear of one’s fellows and land safely.”
They finally offered, “I shudder to think what the casualty list would be if a typical group of passengers was to attempt their first descents in an emergency. The average man, woman or child in a Boeing would stand a better chance of survival riding the plane down.”
The fatal plane crash in Florida is currently under investigation
Around 12:50 p.m. ET on Nov. 1, a Learjet 60 carrying seven passengers and two crew members crashed near a busy road in Palm Beach County. The flight was traveling from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas. There were no on-board survivors, but one person on the ground survived with injuries.
During a press conference, National Transportation Safety Board member Thomas Chapman revealed that a “very significant bit of evidence” was found in the crash debris. “Yesterday the majority of the aircraft’s left elevator was located in three pieces within a range of about 1.3 to 3.8 miles away from the accident site. Those items are being retained for analysis,” Chapman said on Tuesday, per USA Today. “
It may be some time before there is a clear picture of what happened.
Photo by Scott Dudelson/Getty Images
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