# Has anyone ever escaped a burning skyscraper using a parachute? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 11, 2010, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-escaped-a-burning-skyscraper-using-a-parachute/553403 "2010-09-11T14:02:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-escaped-a-burning-skyscraper-using-a-parachute/553403/21 "2010-09-12T20:40:11Z")
> [@pudytat72](#): > > What happens when 50 or 100 or 200 people are all trying to jump out of a burning building using their parachute? I’d say it’s reasonably clear that parachutes are not a practical way for meaningful numbers of people to escape a burning building. > [@](#): > > They need to show that many people from many floors can get down safely at the same time. All they really need to show is that the number of injuries & fatalities is less than without the Rescue Reel. ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-escaped-a-burning-skyscraper-using-a-parachute/553403/22 "2010-09-13T06:48:54Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Wouldn’t an updraft help you? It certainly would give your shoot greater drag, and thus less likely you would go splat. Obviously unpredictable winds aren’t exactly a good thing for a parachuter, but so long as I don’t end up back in the burning building, I would be pretty much cool going anywhere. You mean a broad steady consistent updraft, or a turbulent erratic one, such as you’d likely find in a burning skyscraper? The latter could easily collpase your chute and put you back into freefall. ---
**Author:** ![GreedySmurf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a698b9/32.png) [@GreedySmurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreedySmurf)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-escaped-a-burning-skyscraper-using-a-parachute/553403/23 "2010-09-13T07:41:31Z")
> [@robby](#): > > > [@GreedySmurf](#): > > > > Interesting idea, but I wonder how effective it would be in a WTC situation, where if you were on the upper floors you would have to descend past 3-4 stories where there is thick black (probably toxic) smoke pouring out and I’m presuming the heat coming out of the building in that band of burning stories would be pretty intense. > > I think it would be preferable to take my chances rather than burn up or take a 100-story swan dive. > > In any event, you’d be descending through the smoke pretty rapidly. At the stated descent rate of 2 stories per second, you’d be exposed to the smoke for just 2 seconds for the 3-4 stories you mention. Hopefully the heat from the fire wouldn’t damage the cord. > > Also, presumably the fire and smoke would be pouring primarily out of one side of the building. You can choose which side of the building you make your exit from, and ideally you wouldn’t pick the side of the building belching flame and smoke. No doubt. almost anything is peferable to a 100 storey swan dive 😛 I may be mistaken, but with the WTC, my memory seems to say that the smoke was pouring out on all four sides of the building. I suppose with a rapid descent the smoke will hopefully not trouble you too much, but , again wit heh WTC case, the floors that were burning were pretty intense and I’d be interested to see some data on what the cable in those things is made from and how heat resistant they are. In terms of the number of people evacuated, surely it wouldn’t be too hard to put a small motor in that rescue reel thing to retrieve the cable to let multiple people use it. As to the congestion issues, would you presume most highrises would give a couple of hours to evacuate. If you have 6-10 people coming down each side and a descent time of what 2 minutes, that’ll get a lot of people out of the building. ---
**Author:** ![foolscap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9a140/32.png) [@foolscap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolscap)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2010, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-escaped-a-burning-skyscraper-using-a-parachute/553403/24 "2010-09-13T23:35:51Z")
If you were really high up, you might get some use out of a wing suit This would get you out of the turbulent air around the skyscraper and line you up on a good landing area before you had to pop the chute. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2010, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-escaped-a-burning-skyscraper-using-a-parachute/553403/25 "2010-09-14T00:40:22Z")
Given the choice of jumping, burning to death, or using a parachute that may not help, I’ll take a chance with the parachute. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anyone-ever-escaped-a-burning-skyscraper-using-a-parachute/553403.md?page=1)