[JohnSmithee]

"That's the difference: planes run out of fuel in a way that gives an opportunity for safe recovery, Segways do not. Also planes require many hours of training before one is allowed to fly them, a Segway is supposedly usable right out of the box."

Considering the complexity of aircraft, there's only so much that can be done to avoid falling out of the sky. The changes to make the Segway safe are rather trivial and have little to do with design limitations.

[discostu]

Exactly. It's the duty of manufacturers to make their vehicle as capable as possible of not harming the occupant when running out of fuel (something that's bound to happen once in a while). Planes can glide, cars can coast, helicopters are graceless beasts to begin with, Segway should have built something in to start with. They didn't and now they're getting recalled for not asking important questions early in the development process.