Aircraft Deceleration Devices

A non flying software engineer friend of mine insistes it is poossible to put
devices on a plane to make it safer by impacting the ground at a low velocity
after loss of control or catastrophic failure, or to be able to manuever to
miss an obstacle when impact is imminent. These devices would include
retrorockets, large recovery chutes, airbrake type control surfaces, warpable
wings, and software on airplanes. Ballistic recovery systems have had
successes on light planes and ultralights Otherwise, I have told him that the
above have been proven to be impractical and even dangerous. He insists that
technology is there that would allow either an out of control or powerless
heavy to eiher recover or hit the ground softly enough that it would be
survivable. I've got 34 years in the business and a degree in aero engineering
but he seems to think I am just being negative.

Any comments or knowledge of potential technolgy I can feed his pipe dreasm
with?

Steve