Moscow: Russian engineers today presented a parachute they have designed to save people's lives in skyscrapers after disasters, an idea inspired by the September 11 attacks last year, Interfax-AVN reported.
The engineers in the central Russian city of Kazan said they designed the parachute to be easy to use and resistant to tearing by debris.
They tested their invention by throwing out a 100kg weight from the 14th floor of a building.
It opened between the 8th and 7th floors and worked perfectly.
Its designers say the parachute can be used from the 8th or 9th floor of buildings upwards.
In the first of the two plane strikes in New York, an American Airlines Boeing 767, commandeered just after takeoff from Boston, was slammed by Islamic militants into the north tower of the World Trade Centre, 19 floors below the top floor.
Seventeen minutes later, United Airlines flight 175, which also set out from Boston, tore through the WTC's south tower, 33 floors below the top floor.
According to a New York Times investigation, some 1,100 people trapped on upper floors suffered a horrible fate; only 18 of them were able to find the only stairway not blocked by rubble, run down and save themselves.
Some, realising that they would choke to death if they stayed in the building, preferred to leap out to their deaths.