When a plane full of people has to put down on water, everyone may be expected to don their lifejackets, leap into the briny and swim to one of a number of liferafts, which may be nearby.
Today’s invention offers an alternative approach.
The crew deploys the emergency chutes -as for a land-based evacuation.
These are chutes with a difference however, in that they can be sealed at either end to form a barge with high, inflated walls. The chutes, once filled, would be detached quickly from the plane.
Four of these units could accommodate an entire planeload of people, without anyone needing to get wet/hypothermic.