A person can safely descend from a burning high-rise building or the like using an
inflatable flying body that has a hollow conical form in an inflated deployed condition, but is deflated and folded into a backpack form in a stowed condition. The flying body includes an upper stabilizing ring, a lower
nose structure with a pneumatic damping body,
spoke struts extending conically therebetween, a cover
skin covering the abovementioned
inflatable components to form the conical outer surface and provide aerodynamic braking drag, and gas generators to inflate the
inflatable components. A person straps on the apparatus in the stowed backpack form and pulls a
handle to actuate the gas generators for inflating the apparatus, whereby the expanding apparatus ejects the person from the building and then orients itself in a
nose-down attitude during the descent. The pneumatic damping body damps and dissipates the landing
impact energy.