191–200 of 491 posts
Did the passenger have to move the pilot out of his seat? Or is the plane designed so that the passenger can also pilot in scenarios like this?
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What do you think of all the people young drivers kill? Should people be prevented from driving they are a bit more responsible? Maybe around 30 years.
Poor judgement is not the same as incapacity. We have a framework to deal with poor judgement. What we also need is a framework to deal with incapacity.
The pilot operating this flight would have had, at minimum, a 2nd class medical, which has to be renewed every 12 months.
Pilot here. I'm floored that a person with no flying experience could put this airplane down without a scratch. Air traffic controllers are not necessarily pilots, but luckily, this one was a pilot and certified instructor. ATC and passenger worked through a stressful situation to produce an amazing outcome. Bravo!
Listening to the audio of the conversation, it doesn't seem like the passenger has no flying experience... At minimum they must have spent significant time around aviation or be ex-military. e: From another comment on Reddit > Examples: > The passenger knew what button to press on the yoke to transmit to ATC. > The passenger knew aviation phraseology and phonetics “333 Lima Delta”. > The passenger knew where the alti…
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You’re not going point to point a foot above the surface unless you’re over water (calm seas at that). Soviets built a concept plane that did just this, though. Airplanes are more efficient near the ground than a little bit away, but not as efficient as at normal cruising altitudes.
You're probably thinking of Ground Effect Vehicles (sometimes Ekranoplans). The Russians built lots, not just as a concept, if you own a huge lake (not an ocean) they're somewhat practical for crossing it quickly. The Americans and Canadians (who also own some large lakes) have likewise built some of these. The Ground Effect, as its name suggests, only exists near the ground, so in one sense you're "flying" but if th…
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While I think even the colossally tone-deaf FAA wouldn't try to prosecute this guy under these circumstances, there's an odd gray area here, where a certificated pilot can deviate from any regulation to meet the need of an emergency [1] -- so I think a twist of logic would allow a non-pilot to be allowed to deviate from the "must have a pilot certificate" rules to meet his emergency the same way while acting as pilot…
One might argue that if he's specifically following the direct instructions of the ATC, who is a licensed pilot in this case, that the ATC is "the pilot," and his allowing of a non-pilot to push the buttons on his behalf was a necessary deviation to handle the emergency and land the plane.
Stupid question, but could this guy end up in some sort of legal trouble? He's obviously a hero and saved the lives of everyone on board, but it's still illegal to fly a plane while unqualified, right?
Basically, the FAA really can't do much, and nobody else has authority to punish the person who landed since they didn't cause any personal or property damage.
bravo! any idea how hard or easy this is? did the passenger land on an airstrip or where? all details lacking
Looking at the ATC transcript, the passenger couldn't figure out the transponder, change frequencies or give out his cell phone number. At least he was able to get the microphone working. Likely he eventually picked up the phone number ATC gave him and they took it from there. The video shows ATC got him to a really long runway, a good portion of which he overflew. No flare on the landing, but the Caravan is a tough…
> the attitude was just right attitude or altitude? I imagine both would be correct. :)
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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.
Just to quantify this, the shortest 60-0 stopping distance for a "consumer-grade" car (meaning not a formula one vehicle) is the Porsche 911, which can do it in 27m. This is nearly 6 vehicle lengths. Usual safety guidelines are to stay about 3 car lengths behind whoever you're following, so even world's greatest brakes are not gonna save you if the vehicle in front stops in 0m because it hits an immovable pile of alr…
following distance Watch when the rear of the vehi- cle ahead passes a sign, pole, or any other fixed point. Count the seconds it takes you to reach the same point (one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two.) You are following too close if you pass that point before counting two seconds. Slow down and check your new following interval. Repeat until you are following no closer than two seconds. Always increase your following distance on slick roads, when following large vehicles, motorcycles, or vehicles pulling a trailer, at night, in fog, in bad weather and when following vehicles that stop at railroad crossings (transit buses, school buses or vehicles carrying dangerous mate- rial.)
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