The reason planes dim the lights during takeoff and landing is for safety and so that they can see the runway lights more easily in the dark.
This allows them to get a good straight take off down the runway to take off and then to return they can see the runway marker lights more easily when landing.
There are giant parachutes that exist that are capable of carrying a huge airplane if it were to get ready to crash.
Although they are expensive and are not really practical to have on a huge aircraft.
It would be a good idea though for airlines to have a commercial airline parachute attached to the plane if there was a good way of doing so.
Then the airline pilot could deploy the parachute but it's not as practical as it would seem and airplane crashes are also very rare.
There are actually more deadly car crashes per year than there are commercial airplane crashes.
The larger parachutes for commercial airliners would also be very heavy and create too much weight on the plane which makes it not feasible for the large airplanes.
Airliners generally have two or more engines and can fly for some time on one alone (how long varies from plane to plane).
A parachute system would be incredibly heavy and incredible expensive and would not be justified by the risk, which is miniscule. Airliners almost never crash, and when they do, the reason is almost never engine or structural failure.
A parachute would not have saved the Air France 447 flight that went down over the Atlantic due to pitot tube icing.
It wouldn't have prevented the Asiana 214 flight from getting low and slow and impacting terrain at SFO.
It would not have helped the GermanWings flight that's in the news now either. US Airways 1549 DID have full engine failure, but didn't need the parachute at all - the plane was landed safely with no fatalities.
When Air Canada 143, "The Gimli Glider" ran out of fuel at 41,000 feet, they landed safely without a parachute as well. It's a rare flight indeed that would have a problem that a parachute would solve!
As for passengers having parachutes they don't do that either because parachuting from an airplane requires skill and training.
Although if it meant dying in a plane crash or at least trying to survive a parachute jump I would rather try jumping from a parachute to at least have a chance of survival than dying in the plane crash.