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I know commercial airplanes are gradually becoming safer thanks to the development of systems that are able to avoid the conditions that would lead to a fatality. But is anybody developing systems for minimizing deaths if a plane crashes? For example, cars have airbags and airfighters can eject the pilot's seat in critical situations.

It's a little bit disappointing to see that an aircraft's cabin still breaks into pieces when it crashes during takeoff or landing, causing deaths or injuries. Isn't there any way to make the cabin structure more break resistant at landing/takeoff speeds? Wouldn't airbags prevent people hitting their heads against the cabin's walls?

And now the probably naivest question: couldn't giant parachutes be installed on airplanes to prevent them from falling in case of stall or engines failure?

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    $\begingroup$ The question of why full-aircraft parachutes are not used have been discussed thoroughly in Why don't big commercial planes have full aircraft parachutes? $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 10:56
  • $\begingroup$ There is also Airbags in aircraft - is that just a military thing? to address your question about airbags. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 10:59
  • $\begingroup$ The question of break resistance is most likely answerable by looking at the additional weight imposed by the stronger materials that would be needed to construct such an airframe, and what that would do to other aspects (payload capacity, fuel consumption, etc.) of the airframe design. $\endgroup$
    – user
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 11:00
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    $\begingroup$ This question has a lot of information on the fundamental, physics-based difficulties of crash protection $\endgroup$
    – Pondlife
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 11:37

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