If you spent too much time on social media this week you probably saw a video showing a detachable cabin design for airplanes. You’re not crazy. This is a terrible idea. Here’s the clip if you haven’t seen it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z13Ae9ygiCU
The inventor has been working on the idea for three years (hopefully part-time) and says the cabin can be detached at any point during flight. Heres a shortlist of why this is a terrible idea:
- More people die from bee stings than airplane crashes – planes are safe.
- There are over 170 miles of wiring and 5 miles of tubing on a 747 – all of this would need to be detachable. What if a connection fails?
- What happens to the pilots?
- Who makes the decision to detach?
Even if you ignore how safe planes are, over 50,000 commercial passenger planes take flight each day. Boeing and Airbus combined produce about 1300 planes each year. I don’t expect to fly in a detachable cabin airplane anytime soon. Safe travels.