For decades, humans have searched for ways to soar through the air without a care in the world.
Now, a pair of engineers believe they have found a solution to this – but they had to look back on the ground for it.
Inspired by the crash of Air India 171 in Ahmedabad three months ago, Project Rebirth is an aircraft survival system designed to anticipate a crash.
If the artificial intelligence (AI) suspects something may go wrong, such as engine failure, it deploys a massive airbag ‘cocoon’ to cushion the aircraft.
The airbags, which are made of layered fabric, shoot out ‘from the nose, belly, and tail in under two sec,’ absorbing the impact.
The Project Rebirth website includes various mock-ups of the system, which appear to be AI-generated, being riddled with spelling mistakes and having a yellow tint to them.
The concept was created by Eshel Wasim and Dharsan Srinivasan at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Dubai.
They said: ‘REBIRTH is more than engineering – it’s a response to grief. A promise that survival can be planned, and that even after failure, there can be a second chance.’
It deploys airbags in a staggered fashion, as well as CO2 canisters and sensors, alerting pilots and preparing the plane for an emergency landing.
Drag parachutes help produce reverse thrust to slow the aircraft in a controlled touchdown.
The design raises some questions, such as the possibility of the system being activated in error and the inevitable weight it would add to a fuselage, thus increasing costs.
One of the engineers said that he was inspired to come up with a solution to air crashes by his mother’s reaction to the Air India crash.
Flight 171 was bound for London Gatwick when it crashed seconds after takeoff, killing all but one of the passengers on board.
An investigation into the disaster is focusing on the fuel lever switches, with one deployed just after the Boeing 787 lifted off the ground.
It is unknown whether the incident was deliberate or an accident.
Wasim and Srinivasan said that the project was born from ‘a moment of heartbreak’.
‘Why isn’t there a system for survival after failure? I shared this with a friend. That emotional storm became hours of research and design’, they said.
Project Rebirth is a finalist for the James Dyson Award, which spotlights inventions that can change the world.
The idea is the latest in a line of unusual concepts to improve air safety.
In 2016, Ukrainian inventor Tatarenko Vladimir Nikolaevich caught global attention with his detachable aircraft cabin.
The fuselage was designed to be made with ultra-lightweight materials such as Kevlar and carbon fibre and would be assisted with parachutes.
However, critics suggested the innovative cabin could in fact weaken an aircraft’s structure.
Concerns were also raised that the removable cabin could pose a risk to people on the ground as it featured no steering function.
Some aircraft have been designed with in-built parachutes, which release in the event of an emergency to bring the whole aircraft slowly to the ground.
One such design is the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System, which became FAA-approved in 1998 and to date remains the only system of its kind.
The parachute is activated within seconds by a solid fuel rocket housed in the rear of the fuselage.
As of 2019, 21 out of 24 aircraft which crashed with the system on board were successfully repaired and returned to service.
However, the main question to be asked of these innovations are whether they are needed in a world where aviation accidents remain incredibly rare.
Last year’s IATA safety report showed that just 1.14 out of a million flights were involved in an accident.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
