Maybe a system for emergency detaching of the failed engine with a parachute would help aleviate the consequences of flying with a uncontrollably vibrating fireball?
The kind of incident that happened on this flight is incredibly rare, and in fact nobody got hurt. Sadly, while I get where you’re going, what you propose would almost certainly make emergencies more common, not less.
To implement your solution you’d need at least:
- Some kind of mechanical release to let the engine go
- reliable ways to disconnect the electricity, fuel, control, hydraulic and other connections without affecting the rest of the aircraft when the engine detached
- a parachute with a release mechanism
Each of these mechanisms comes with its own disastrous failure case:
- engine mechanically releases when it shouldn’t, taking everything with it (this has happened [0]), or engine is released while still producing thrust despite the fire, destroying the wing or tail
- hydraulic or other lines don’t release when they should, taking everything with it in an otherwise survivable situation
- parachute fails, dropping engine on people, parachute catches fire in flight, parachute accidentally deploys in flight...
This is just off the top of my head, I’m sure there are many other potential problems.
Sometimes the best solution is to work out what happened and make it less likely to happen, rather than add stuff to catch it after it fails.
The system you propose already exists: fuse pins hold the nacelle to the wing, and ensure the engine separates cleanly from the aircraft if vibrations exceed dangerous levels.
Surely such a system would add more causes of failure than it could alleviate. I mean, you literally want to decrease the bond between engine and wing.
