I would think forest and karst environments would be equally hostile to any other lifeboat alternatives that might be suggested as answers. Parachutes are your best bet either way IMO--in a world resembling our own.

Look at historical (non-combat) airship losses for clues: Few would have been mitigated by lifeboats. Also the extra weight of lifeboats/gliders/whatever has a non-trivial impact on the parent airship's capability.

What's with the drive by downvotes on all the answers.

@PaulTIKI seems to be a fad. I dropped two downvotes one on the link-only answer and one on the use-magic answer. Both are, in their current form, bad practice that should not be encouraged.

@Paul Tiki: I was wondering that!

@dot_Sp0T I agree on those two. Thing is it looked like all answers got downvoted, which makes little sense.

@JHB I think that edit is perhaps more than what is called for. Those exact requirements are not present in the original question, and I think reasonable interpretations might not follow them. The primary mechinism must not be same as the main ship, but it might be allowed to be some other method of lift. Getting to the ground by individual parachutes is rejected, but I don't see evidence that site choice is encouraged.

Then don't use individual parachutes. Use one that's extremely large: Cirrus Aircraft, airframe parachute

How many passengers? What is rate of decent? You would have to use the airship to navigate over a good area. You could have a number of 1000ft steel cables, and have a mechanical device to control the rate of decent. Strap a harness on, connect it to the cable and start sliding down.

@cybernard I think that's a fine answer.

Really? You claim the issue is more difficult in air than in space? That strongly depends on your assumptions and requirements, perhaps how you look at it. You may view it as more difficult because you are assuming a much higher tech level for lifeboats in space. You, perhaps, are not imposing the same requirement of getting the evacuees to somewhere they can live without needing the support of the lifeboat. However, even that requirement isn't necessarily guaranteed in just an at-sea lifeboat. If you're going to make comparisons, please define the requirements so the comparisons make sense.

Okay I don't know who edited this question while I was asleep, I didn't take note, but leave it alone, you made things a lot harder and more complicated than necessary.

@cybernard Dude where is that as a fleshed out answer? I was looking forward to reading it.

@Ash just look at the edit history of your question. you can also do rollbacks from there

@dot_Sp0T I'm just trying to be nice about it and not naming names, while being pretty PO'd about it just the same.

@Ash I will write it up tonight.

@cybernard Thanks man, it's a good idea, I'm not sure if it works but I'd like to see the nuts and bolts.

I'd take a feather out of this question worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/93952/… and have a flock of giant eagles following airships. They can be used to convey passengers & crew from a disabled airship to land safely. Giant eagles will know where to land. Yes this isn't serious. Hopefully levity isn't verboten. :)

@a4android Cute I like it, it may feel a little like the sharks that used to follow whaling ships to get in on the action from the point of view of the passengers though.

I have an idea but it's pretty dependent on how many passengers you want to save and the maximum size per lifeboat. Could you please provide some guidelines for about how big your airships are and how many passengers they carry?