Delta Flyer escape pod The " Delta Flyer " escape pod was a one - person escape pod assigned to the Federation shuttle " Delta Flyer " , attached to the . The " Delta Flyer " carried at least three such pods , which were equipped with a phaser , a tricorder , and enough emergency ration s to allow someone to survive for less than ten days . ( ) In 2376 , the " Delta Flyer " was damaged by an encounter with a dark matter lifeform while exploring a class T cluster . Captain Kathryn Janeway took the " Flyer " to the radiogenic rings of a T - class gas giant to restart the warp core , but the " Flyer " was threatened by more lifeforms . Thus , Janeway ordered Crewmen Tal Celes , Mortimer Harren , and William Telfer to abandon the " Flyer " in escape pods while she provided a distraction . Only Harren took an escape pod , while Celes and Telfer remained with Janeway . Harren attempted to divert the lifeforms himself by plotting a course towards them , but Janeway refused to allow him to sacrifice his life and transported the pod back aboard . The " Flyer " ultimately escaped the lifeforms by igniting the radiogenic particles . ( ) Later that year , B ' Elanna Torres and Harry Kim were on a mission in the " Delta Flyer " searching for dilithium . Encountering turbulence , Torres ordered Kim into the escape pod and both soon crash land ed on a class L planet . Kim was able to salvage a few emergency rations , a phaser , and the escape pod ' s transmitter before he left in search of Torres and the " Flyer " . ( ) Background information . According to the design specifications of the studio model , the " Delta Flyer " escape pod was endowed with : Studio model . Only seen in the episode " Good Shepherd " , the escape pod was designed by Rick Sternbach who finalized his design in January 2000 . As for the location of the escape pods within the " Delta Flyer " , Sternbach remarked : " Just aft of the 74656 [ registry ] on the starboard side of the " D [ elta ] F [ lyer ] " , there are two flaps ( . . . ) . Under each flap was supposed to be one lifepod , stored along the same general fore - aft line as the hull curve . I always thought the launch of the pod would be similar to firing an aft torpedo tube on a submarine ; if the " DF " is headed toward certain destruction , shoot the pod back along the flight vector . Of course , any time there was more than four people aboard , the whole concept of an escape method would probably have been somewhat awkward . " The " Flyer " was " supposed " to hold four of these things , but it was another Hollywood case of innards not matching exteriors ( just like those movies where rowboats appeared as spacious as cabin cruisers ) . The aft cargo compartment was being cooked up separately by Richard James and the set designer folks , and there really wasn ' t any place to indicate entry hatches for the lifeboats . You just had to have faith that they were stored in the aft walls . The lifeboats were sacrificed for extra impulse booster rockets in the space race episode , BTW . Technically , the " DF " stasis chamber where Seven was stored stuck out into space , so it was definitely a problem trying to get * anything * to fit properly . " The escape pod was eventually built as a CGI studio model by Doug Drexler during his stint at Foundation Imaging .