Posted on 10/20/2001 6:51:11 PM PDT by joan
DETROIT, Michigan: The maker of a lightweight parachute designed as a last resort escape from skyscrapers is being overwhelmed with inquiries from as far away as Malaysia and Taiwan following the collapse of the World Trade Center last month.
Executivechute in Three Rivers, Michigan, sells the escape devices for $795 a piece and says they work for jumping from any building or office on the tenth floor or higher.
Since launching Executivechute last week, John Rivers, a 37-year-old producer of ultra-light planes and former race-car driver, has received hundreds of orders from individuals and companies.
Unlike the rectangular chutes steered by skydivers, the Executivechute is round, which Rivers says carries it straight down rather than along a sloping, lateral descent.
He said he wanted to help prevent deaths like those suffered by people trapped in the 110-story twin towers in New York or who knowingly jumped to their deaths to avoid a slower death by smoke inhalation or fire.
He had received a request to design such a parachute just months before the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington but refused, believing no one would want such a product.
"I'm not going to make that mistake again," he said.
"To have something that could potentially save lives and not make it available to the general public would be criminal."
The parachute opens automatically by the weight against a static line that the user clips to a desk or door knob in the office from which he is escaping.
( AFP )
Actually, a home inventor could build something like you suggest. It would have some kind of built-in braking system, hopefully simple, and a harness like you suggest made out of narrow nylon stuff. You might be able to ratchet your self down somehow.
I had this vision of me crawling Wiley Coyote like out of a smoking hole in the pavement, only to be clobbered by the desk.
I don't know.
My impression is that none of them really work all that well.
I didn't know if people were hoping for helicopter rescue. It sounds like there would have been people on the roof hoping to be evacuated that way.
Maybe they were so caught off-guard that they couldn't coordinate a rescue attempt. Somewhere down the line maybe we'll be told why it didn't happen.
They could have special metal handles on the walls/floor specifically to be used for these parachutes.
Monty says hello!
Good idea. That's probably the only way it could work. I can just see some dude hooking his line to his desk drawer handle (or door knob), only to have the drawer (or door knob) snatched out and follow him out the window.
I think they were used from about 400 feet up.
Only the South Tower (the second one hit, but the first to fall) had an observation deck on the roof. However, this deck was inundated with smoke from the North Tower (the first one hit and the second one to fall). So, there would have been little point in getting to the roof of the South Tower -- one would be over come from the smoke inhalation, and likely would not have been visible to any aircraft.
As for the North Tower, it did not have an observation deck. Was there access to the roof, and if so, how easy was it?
Now this parachute scam........Arrrrrghhh !
Stay Safe !
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