I don’t think the airbag is there to protect you in the event of catastrophic failure of the airframe. At that point there is little any aircraft designer can do to protect you (and I suspect not even considered in the design of the aircraft, their job is to ensure it doesn’t get to that point in the first place). However correctly designed and installed airbags could protect both passenger and crew during hard landings, overruns, gear ups etc. Look at cabin crew seats, they are squeezed in where possible, generally in the vicinity of a main exit, and are of interesting construction. If they fail to protect the crew in the event of an incident then potentially you end up with a blocked exit and an incapcitated crew member (remember, in the unlikley event of an emergency, follow your crew, they are trained what to do:) ). Therefore the installation of airbags in these locations as well as the other emergency exits make sense in the overall view of improving the survivability rate and reducing injury in those potentially survivable crashes.
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