[ELI5] If Astronauts can be delivered safely back to earth using parachutes, why couldn’t the same technology be used to save a doomed aircraft?

Question

I definitely have a five year old’s understanding of aviation and engineering but I’m envisioning a system in which the wings/tail section are intentionally designed to break away in the event of a catastrophic failure, and a parachute deploys to carry just the fuselage back down at a safe speed.

In: 12

Answer 1

It’s general extremely rare for an aircraft to become entirely uncontrollable. It’s easier to design aircraft to avoid that situation than waste a lot of weight on a parachute recovery system that likely will never be used.