I found the failure of the chutes to deploy properly in the past minis to be quite alarming from an industry perspective. After the incident at LaGuardia, it's clear there's a very serious problem.

If that plane went into that frigid water, those chutes could have saved dozens of lives as flotation devices. You can't survive in water that cold for long, and swimming is extremely difficult, especially if it is off the shore a ways. Now, some people would have died fighting for spots on those chutes or, more appropriately, for losing a spot on those chutes. However, I'm pretty damn certain I would've had one of those spots.

Regardless, this is a very serious issue.