Because the wing exits had only slides, and not slide-rafts like the doors, passengers who exited through those openings could have been marooned in the frigid water if rescue boats had not arrived before the plane sank.
The company that hired Tour's group to make inflatable slides and rafts for aircraft found a cheaper lab.
Commercial aircraft add galleys and toilets, onboard entertainment and announcement systems, emergency slides and rafts, and other equipment for passenger comfort and safety.
People tried to swim in the river, some slipped into the water and were pulled back, all ended up standing on the wings, some waist deep in water, or in the inflated slides and rafts.
Board experts said that the damage on touchdown — which let water flow into the back of the fuselage and submerged the rear doors, rendering their slide-rafts useless — might be typical in such cases and recommended that rafts be located where they were more likely to be accessible.
As a result, it carried four inflatable devices meant to be available as evacuation slides and as rafts, and the two that worked were a safe haven for 64 passengers and crew members; without the rafts, some of them would probably have died in the 41-degree water, board experts said.
Tour has sold patents for a graphene-infused paint whose conductivity might help remove ice from helicopter blades, fluids to increase the efficiency of oil drills, and graphene-based materials to make the inflatable slides and life rafts used in airplanes.
Interior products include seats, lighting, cargo-handling systems, evacuation slides and life rafts and military aircraft-escape systems.
She got up and was pushed along the aisle and out an exit, then slid down an inflated slide into a life raft.
