Apparently there were 2 passengers. I wonder if one of the passengers video chatted with the air traffic controller so they could see what the person in the pilot’s seat was doing?
Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
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Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#112I bet this was a guy raised on video games. I was about to make a joke about it but I'm actually serious. Once I, a former Houstonian with no experience driving on ice, was driving through the snowy mountains and lost control of my car. Instead of panicking, my video-game-induced laser focus kicked in and I calmly piloted the car until the wheels gained traction and I could park the car on the side of the road. But l…
Video game experience is absolutely better than no experience. On small general aviation planes, the feature set is quite minimal and most simulators will replicate all of it faithfully enough, so the only remaining thing is the “feel” of the plane which you can hopefully experience a bit during flight before landing. In contrast, a big passenger jet has insane amounts of different systems that need to be configured…
The biggest problem is communication. The best thing you can have, more than some idea how an aeroplane works even, is knowing how to talk to the ground. If you're talking to the ground, you get both practical benefits (people on the ground know how to fly that plane, and know what you need to do to get it back down safely) and a morale boost.
Chances are if you're taking over in an emergency, the radios are already tuned to a frequency with other humans on it, and you just need to know how to talk (there's a push-to-talk arrangement) and how to listen to what they say back. If you need to tune the radio that's already bad news, but if you happen to be reading this thread you want 121.5 MHz aka "Guard" and once people realise you're serious you should get help quickly.
The big plane can in principle perform the entire landing and roll out at a suitable runway, it's called a CAT IIIc landing. No hand flying is required, much less knowing the full "from dark & quiet" procedures. But arranging for that to happen is going to need communication with the ground. Most scheduled flights don't actually perform an automated landing of any sort since that would leave pilots rusty, and so your intended destination probably isn't capable or isn't set up to do it - but if a non-pilot is now flying a big plane that's not "most scheduled flights" that's an emergency, and so the fact that the only CAT III runway is currently being used for take-offs, or is closed to repair the markings, or is at a different airport on the far side of the city, does not matter. They will do what it takes to get you down safely.
The reason we don't use CAT IIIc landings ordinarily is that unless there was an emergency they don't solve a problem we really have. The CAT IIIc landing puts the aeroplane safely on the ground (good) but leaves it on the runway, where it's a hazard to everybody else. Under IIIc conditions a human can't see a hand waved in front of their face - which is why the landing was automated - so taxiing is impossible. If you're a non-pilot who just saved 200 people's lives that's not a problem, you're down safe now. If you're a commercial pilot with six more commuter jets stuck behind you on a Monday morning it's terrible so we just close the airport to all traffic in those conditions.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not nitpicking because I agree with you, but in an emergency situation like this if you can walk away from the airplane, the condition of it is irrelevant. So I think at least 85-90% of the time (in good weather with a crosswind component below 7-8kts or so) everyone would be okay. And absolutely agreed on the large aircraft part. I'm a private pilot, but no instrument cert yet, with only piston single experience - n…
I think the first obstacle for a layman to land a plane is to not panic and figure out how to work the radio (without pressing the wrong thing and accidentally shutting down the engines or something equally disastrous) so they can then follow the instructions calmly. I’d expect most people that would fail would fail at this stage - if they can get past that, their odds improve a lot.
It's less of a disaster than you'd think. Even if you shut off the engines the plane can glide for a long time. So if you don't panic you will have time to turn them back on.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
They landed at an airport. I think the CNN article has a bit more context: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/florida-passenger-lands-p... > Morgan learned the passenger on the line had never flown a plane -- but had been around aviation and seen other pilots fly. If they've been around planes like this before, I don't think it'd be that difficult to land in one piece with guidance (and the ATC seemed to be a CFI as…
Can’t solo with passengers… :) this was commercial experience!
Ah very true :) Joking aside, I don't want to make it seem like I am discounting their achievement. It's a very high pressure situation with a lot of potential for a bad outcome, and they handled it extremely well.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#115I bet this was a guy raised on video games. I was about to make a joke about it but I'm actually serious. Once I, a former Houstonian with no experience driving on ice, was driving through the snowy mountains and lost control of my car. Instead of panicking, my video-game-induced laser focus kicked in and I calmly piloted the car until the wheels gained traction and I could park the car on the side of the road. But l…
Video game experience is absolutely better than no experience. On small general aviation planes, the feature set is quite minimal and most simulators will replicate all of it faithfully enough, so the only remaining thing is the “feel” of the plane which you can hopefully experience a bit during flight before landing. In contrast, a big passenger jet has insane amounts of different systems that need to be configured…
When I did my private license 20 years ago, my instructor asked me whether I had previous experience playing flight simulators. She said that people who had usually required more time in the cockpit to unlearn all the bad habits they had acquired from games.
Maybe things have changed since the days of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#116[deleted]
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not so sure you know what a good distance is from the car in front of you.
In a multi-car pileup, the car immediately in front of you literally stops in an instant, much faster than if it were to fully hit the brakes. It's much faster than any driver could realistically expect. It can happen so fast, you may not even see brake lights turn on. It's why these pileups can get so surprisingly large.
That is why you should always leave enough space in front of you so that you can react and safely come to a stop if the car in front were to suddenly hit a pileup.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think you could fairly easily talk someone through landing The bad news is that it is 10/28 (east-west) and the wind was reported from the north at 11 knots gusting 17. KPBI 101553Z 02011G17KT 10SM SCT042 SCT046 26/15 A student pilot with 20 hours of training probably wouldn’t have been signed off by his/her/zir/their instructor to operate in that kind of crosswind. From: https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2022/05…
“signed off by his/her/zir/their instructor to operate” What does “zir” mean? I’ve seen it around but can’t remember where.
It's a gender neutral pronoun.
Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated
#119I bet this was a guy raised on video games. I was about to make a joke about it but I'm actually serious. Once I, a former Houstonian with no experience driving on ice, was driving through the snowy mountains and lost control of my car. Instead of panicking, my video-game-induced laser focus kicked in and I calmly piloted the car until the wheels gained traction and I could park the car on the side of the road. But l…
If they made a film of this or a similar style story, it would be interesting to do it in a slumdog millionaire style where the character picks up some things playing video games, some from a case where the nato phonetic alphabet is used, some from watching aircraft investigation shows, etc.