Forgive me if this is a silly question. But what is wrong with the idea of issuing inhabitants of skyscrapers with parachutes?
Surely if the people in the WTC above the impact zones had parachutes they could have broke winfows and jumped to safety!
As I have not seen the word ‘parachute’ mentioned by anyone other than me since the WTC disaster I am inclined to believe that there is something obviously wrong with the idea of issuing people in skyscrapers with parachutes.
So what is it?
Wild guess: training all the people, buying all the chutes, storing all the chutes (wow, that’s a lot of space: how many people worked in each WTC tower?).
Wouldn’t this be one of those things that sounds good but costs so much that the city’s and company’s money is better spent elswhere, like buying fire equipment, or subsidizing sprinkler systems?
A major bulding has been demolished with people in it, what, twice in, um, ever, anwhere? I can’t think of any other examples of this. Overall, the money would probably be better spent on guardrails and ambulances, etc, and would save more lives, wouldn’t it?
Several problems. You need a minimum height for a parachute to be effective so only the tallest 5-10 building in the world would be candidates. Wind is intense around skyscrappers, so you would have to be very good and skydiving to not end up crashing into buildings and antennas on your way down (not to mention getting sucked backed in to the floor that is actually on fire), and of course you have the control issue: hundreds of parachutes at the top of a tall building… I guarentee you that place would have thrillseekers constantly trying to jump off for kicks.
No, parachutes wouldn’t work. Cities with tall buildings are fairly windy places - you get air currents funneled down the streets and so forth. The winds are unpredictable and are even strong enough to flip cars at times. So I wouldn’t parachute down a building unless I had a real hankering to be battered and smashed against the side a whole bunch of times.
Secondly, it takes training to operate a parachute. The common Joe Office Worker wouldn’t be able to use a parachute effectively - he could get lucky, but more often than not, he will panic, or forget which string to pull or misjudge his altitude or whatever. That’s why skydivers take courses and paratroopers are given training.
Thirdly, would you like to try parachuting through a cloud of thousands of other jumpers? I bet the chute will get tangled and take everyone out below you as you plummet to your death. I’d rather use the stairs.
Yeah, but people do this all the time. In my skydiving experience, the chutes that I’ve used slow you after about a thousand feet of fall, but professionals can use much faster chutes. However, there are a body of individuals called BASE jumpers who jump off buildings regularly. I’ve seen some of their rigs but I’m by no means an expert – one BASE jumper I talked to (who was also my free-fall instructor) basically had one of those diaper-type deployers mentioned in my first cite. They have extra-fast chutes that typically deploy immediately after they jump, if they know the drop isn’t that far.
The real problem is that it would be nearly suicidal for an amateur to attempt this. I’ve jumped out of a few airplanes, but I happen to think that this particular hobby is insane. I’m nowhere near experienced enough to try it, and it’s irresponsible to suggest that someone with no experience should attempt BASEing, especially in a crisis where the building is on fire. I’d say that the expected benefit really wouldn’t be worth the risk.
Back in the eighties two guys jumped from the observation deck of the Empire State Building, they had paragliders. I think one got caught by the cops, the other caught a cab.
To answer Cardinal: about 19,000 people worked in each tower.
… And don’t forget all the daily visitors to such a building. Not even considering where to store all those parachutes, but just think of the people needed just to help all those visitors parachute to safety.
Sheesh! 
Sorry, but this is wrong. I remember seeing video of a guy who did a BASE jump inside a domed stadium. I couldn’t find a cite for that event, but I did find pictures of guy who jumped inside of St. Pauls’ Cathedral.
I don’t know if this has been said or not but
Surely the ‘problems’ of parachutes are far outweighed by the fact that without them - ALL the jumpers and people above impact zones die! Parachutes (small enough to take up one drawer in a desk) will give at least some people a chance. And surely “put this on, pull this” is enough training when you consider the alternative!. And also, If I am not mistaken people jump from buildings with parachutes all the time, and they are not the tallest. they are often average sized
I am sure all this has been said by other people. I just find it silly that an idea that would almost certainly have saved at least hundreds of lives in the WTC disaster (and , be realistic - can’t be more expensive than the value of a human life) is being debated, and shot down and ‘poo pooed’
Check Ringo’s link above. There was pretty detailed discussion of this shortly after 11 September 2001.
I think one of the best arguments against having parachutes available was the very good chance that some inexperienced person would grab a parachute, jump, and kill themselves when the situation didn’t warrant the use of the parachute at all.
Along with that, you can’t simply leave a parachute packed for years at a time. They must periodically be taken out, inspected, and repacked. If you don’t repack them periodically, they may not deploy or may deploy improperly
Let’s be realistic (or cynical, if you prefer). Who do you think is willing to pay for this?
Why not let the individual office workers, if they so choose, get the training and bring their own chutes? If they think the risk is worth the cost, let them take personal responsibility for their own safety.
As for the visitors, well, different story.
Oh, and let’s not forget about issuing everybody an axe, in order to break the window. What, you thought the WTC had double-hung windows you could just open for some fresh air? Get real.
If the WTC had been built to NYC fire codes (which it was exempt from) perhaps more people would have survived.
The idea of parachutes as a means of escape makes about as much sense as having fire escapes on the sides of the towers.
There is a solution that would work for a lot of tall buildings, (maybe not the very tallest though).
A plastic mesh tube that can be unrolled from windows so that people can slide down inside. The mesh stretches to accomodate all but the very obese, and the evacuee can control his rate of descent by bending or straightening his body. There would no doubt be some probems in a mass evacuation, and some though would have to be applied to placement, but I saw a video of the thing and it works. I’ve always been curious as to why this hasn’t been adopted on a wide scale. I did a modest web search, but couldn’t find anything - ???
Make that some thought
It might work for lower buildings, but at the size of the WTC, it would take some pretty advanced materials for it just to support its own weight. Now imagine you’ve got people stuffed into it as closely as they can squeeze in (this will happen in an emergency - no matter how its intended to be used.) Now, the supports break or the tube rips, and you’ve got a huge sausage about to splatter on the street below.
I recognize the extreme limitations, especially for the WTC. If it could even support the weight, it would just have delivered a lot of people to the flame zone, and then dropped them. BUT, we’re talking desparation tactics here. I’ve seen plenty of disaster videos - especially one in New Orleans several years ago - where people jump from 10 - 20 stories before the FD gets there.
Somebody made the damn things, but they haven’t caught on, so there must be a technical problem of some kind.
I don’t think it’s been established that hundreds of lives would have been saved. There were significant winds that day (look at the photos of the smoke clouds billowing away from the Towers), and combined with the regular effects of updrafts between tall buildings, you would have had hundreds of people being blown into and smashed against buildings, or blown into the very fire they were trying to escape. And imagine a sky clogged with literally hundreds of low-altitude parachute jumpers in a very small space – they’d be falling into each other, clogging each other’s 'chutes and plummeting to their deaths.
This isn’t a jump from a light plane at 5,000 feet or whatever, where you have time to free-fall, adjust your position, deploy your chute and float gently to the ground. We’re talking about a jump where all those actions and parameters have to be adjusted in seconds, at best.
The question then is: since parachutes seem so simple, but aren’t, what is the best way to rescue (or self rescue) those folks stuck on upper floors in a burning skyscraper?