Man, that's just what commercial airliners need embedded in the back of every seat. Explosive devices.

Because it's pointless? The passenger area doesn't usually crunch up like in a car...there's explosions or oceans involved.

(That was totally taken out of ass in hopes of a free virtual beer.)

Surely there's more than one way to skin that cat.

It's way too freakin' expensive, and like dano said, they wouldn't really be what is needed in a crash.

*Rewards Dano with a cold Modelo just for being the cool cat he is.*

Explosions from the gas tank or what?

It'd be cool of they could make the whole cabin a giant cushiony un burnable airbag.

Like a bubble within a bubble. Kinda.

When an aluminum cigar tube full of people hits something at 400 miles an hour an airbag ain't gonna help.

Who was the comic who asked why they don't just make the entire plane out of the material they use for the black box?

you could just blow into your vomit bag. Voila - air bag.

you could just blow into your vomit bag. Voila - air bag.

Or, under worse circumstances, more like a water balloon.

Sorry.

I think the whole plane should be wearing a huge parachute. It wouldn't help, or anything, but it would look friggin' awesome.

My SO was in a very slow-speed car accident that managed to trigger his airbag. It singed the hair off of one armand off his eyebrow. He said the *pop* was so loud, his ears were ringing afterward. Airbags can be very dangerous, and an airplane is certainly no place for them!

IRFH, like this?

The airlines focus on safety is basically cost/benefit driven. Keeping planes from crashing preserves their asset value, and decreases their per mile cost, so maintenance has gotten slowly better over the years, to the point that commercial airliners are remarkably reliable and safe devices. But measures that would cause objections from the traveling public cost airlines serious seat miles, and are rarely implemented. Thus, practical safety measures like making the default seating position in airliners rear facing, which would improve passenger survivability in crash incidents, according to FAA studies done back in the 50's, and not allowing babies to travel "in mother's arms" where they (the babies) become 20 to 30 pound projectiles in crashes, never fly. Too many people claim to get airsick in backward facing seats, and mothers always think they can hang on to their babies well enough that they shouldn't have to buy them a ticket, that airlines that have tried to implement such things have lost enough revenue to avoid trying them again.

The specific reason that air bags aren't incorporated into commercial aircraft is that they aren't inflated by air, but by tiny rocket motors in the front panels, each of which represents an independent ignition hazard in a cabin atmosphere which might already be oxygen rich due to the operation of oxygen masks, and fuel laden due to rupture of fuel tanks in a crash situation. Lighting 350 little rocket motors in such circumstances might not be the smart thing to do.

Well. There goes all the fun out of that...

I think funbags are still allowed, mudpuppie...

/ducks

Well hell if they can make bike helmets that solidify on impact, how come planes can't be too?

where they (the babies) become 20 to 30 pound projectiles in crashes

You know what would really suck? To live through a plane crash only to then die from head trauma caused by a flying baby.

Planes do not have airbags because the critical ingredient is Flubber(tm) and for some occult reason, DisneyCorp won't license it to the airlines.

*orders a keg of modelo for warbaby*