3 ms·
The kind of incident that happened on this flight is incredibly rare, and in fact nobody got hurt. Sadly, while I get where you’re going, what you propose would
by doctor_eval 6y ago
The kind of incident that happened on this flight is incredibly rare, and in fact nobody got hurt. Sadly, while I get where you’re going, what you propose would almost certainly make emergencies more common, not less.
To implement your solution you’d need at least:
- Some kind of mechanical release to let the engine go
- reliable ways to disconnect the electricity, fuel, control, hydraulic and other connections without affecting the rest of the aircraft when the engine detached
- a parachute with a release mechanism
Each of these mechanisms comes with its own disastrous failure case:
- engine mechanically releases when it shouldn’t, taking everything with it (this has happened [0]), or engine is released while still producing thrust despite the fire, destroying the wing or tail
- hydraulic or other lines don’t release when they should, taking everything with it in an otherwise survivable situation
- parachute fails, dropping engine on people, parachute catches fire in flight, parachute accidentally deploys in flight...
This is just off the top of my head, I’m sure there are many other potential problems.
Sometimes the best solution is to work out what happened and make it less likely to happen, rather than add stuff to catch it after it fails.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_191