A closer look
Instead of handing passengers dinky personal parachutes and wishing them luck, someone finally decided to just parachute the whole damn plane. The Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) is a solid-propellant rocket embedded in the roof of small, single-engine aircraft. If the engine quits or the pilot suffers a medical emergency, they yank a red handle, a rocket deploys a massive 65-foot canopy, and the entire plane floats gently down to the earth. It has literally saved hundreds of lives.
