God, can you imagine the pre-flight checks on all the fasteners (or whatever would hold the sections together)? If you thought you spent a lot of time on the tarmac the last time you flew...

The funny thing is that planes are currently designed to come apart in very specific ways during crash situations. However, this doesn't mean a pilot gets to push a button and everything flies apart.

As for pre-flight checks, they would probably be similar to the current egress checks for the military. It would definitely be time intensive and the cost would hit the traveller right in the pocket.

Lastly, this sort of technology has been proposed for the private sector for awhile now. I've seen plans for parachutes on private planes. The major difference is that you only have one, maybe three, parachutes on each plane. This is something I'm all for on passenger planes. These things have the glide characteristics of bricks, so anything to help ensure safety is a good thing. I think it might be feasible to attach some sort of parachute system to planes as they exist now. It would definitely take retro-fitting planes extensively, though. Tying something like this into the substructure in such a way as to not destroy the plane when it deployed would take lots of work. Having the wings positioned to be blasted off (explosive bolts would work well) would certainly help in this regard.

Last thought - this guy may have filed a patent in order to gain intellectual property rights in case someone tries his idea. If so, good business move on his part.