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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

#201

Post by dhosek »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #95
bluedays wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m pretty video games saved my life while driving, too. Once I was driving down the highway at 70 miles per hour and the car in front of me stopped on a dime. I always maintain a good distance from the car in front of me but I knew for sure if I would have just hit the breaks I would have hit him. I wound up swerving into the next lane with a reaction time of under a second only to drive by a six car pile up which i…

You talked about reaction time, but not situational awareness. Thankfully there was not a car next to you that you would have otherwise swerved into.

I had a similar experience which was pure luck. I was driving home from a night class and going 80 or 90 down the freeway. I realized I was about to rear end a car and I shifted into the right lane only to see another car there and I shifted back into the lane that I came from narrowly missing the original car and the one in the right lane. I probably should have died that night.

Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated

#202

Post by KennyBlanken »

asdfman123 wrote: post #22

I 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…

As someone who grew up in an area that gets a lot of winter driving conditions and has a bunch of car handling training (dry, rain, and winter specific): you didn't "calmly pilot" anything, friend.

You hit ice, you're a passenger until you're no longer on ice. The car is mostly a 2D projectile unless you're on studded tires. You were lucky, that's it.

And, I might add: you lost control of the car. There's a whole chain of failures that led up to that point: not being aware of forecast weather, not being aware of changing conditions, and so on. Folks experienced in driving in winter weather know how to watch the road for signs of icing, how to test for traction that's getting worse, how to be smooth with controls, and how to recognize that a control input is starting to cause the car to lose traction. You fully lost control.

It is a common joke among instructors teaching car handling skills that the worst students are the ones who have played driving video games. They're overconfident. They don't actually know much at all about car handling techniques. They have no motor skills that good, fast driving requires. No "butt sense" - reading how the car feels, sounds, and acts as it approaches or exceeds the limits of traction.

"I safely handled losing control of my car in icy weather because I played Super Mario Brothers decades ago" is almost but not quite the best example of Dunning-Kruger effect I've seen in an HN comment in quite some time.

Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated

#205

Post by foldr »

tadfisher wrote: post #66
sandworm101 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Moore is suspected of being responsible for approximately 100 thefts in Washington, Idaho, and Canada, including bicycles, automobiles, light aircraft , and speedboats.[15] It is believed that he learned how to fly small planes by reading aircraft manuals, handbooks, watching a "How to fly a small airplane" DVD, and playing flight simulator computer games .[17] One plane he stole was a Cessna 182, FAA registration n…

However, he crashed every plane he flew.

https://youtu.be/6cDohyRbzeo?t=159

Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated

#206

Post by adventured »

whimsicalism wrote: post #172
civil_engineer wrote: post #13

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…

From another article:

"Morgan [controller] learned the passenger on the line had never flown a plane -- but had been around aviation and seen other pilots fly."

Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated

#207

Post by Maursault »

ledauphin wrote: post #192
Maursault wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

we do - they're called Aviation Medical Examiners. The pilot operating this flight would have had, at minimum, a 2nd class medical, which has to be renewed every 12 months.

> which has to be renewed every 12 months.

That is simply insufficient. Introduce age to the standard and increase frequency of examinations with increasing age. And let's strongly discourage pilots over a certain age where reaction time, eye-sight and cognition is known to become more deficient. Yes, definitely let's discourage and restrict old people from operating dangerous machinery, no matter how rich and entitled and personally insulted they may be.

Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated

#208

Post by phkahler »

asdfman123 wrote: post #22

I 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…

>> I bet this was a guy raised on video games.

I feel kinda stupid. I played a lot of video games growing up, including a binge on MS Flightsim 4 (I think). When I took flying lessons as an adult, the hardest thing for me was mastering landing. Something about it just wouldn't click for many hours. OTOH I never really mastered landing in the sim either - I didn't really care about that back then and didn't have any instruction at all.

OTOH I helped out for years at Young Eagles events and some kids fly for the first time quite naturally, and when asked they tend to say "Yeah, I leaned on the computer".

Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated

#209

Post by throwawayboise »

Maursault wrote: post #162

I grew up in Florida. It would take all my fingers and toes and more to count the number of times I have seen articles or even witnessed personally from the beach a pilot of a small craft either die naturally at the controls or have some medical event that causes a crash and death. Why are small planes necessary? Am I wrong to believe what it seems like, that the overwhelmingly popular purpose is entertainment ? Is a…

This was a turboprop, so no lead at least.

Re: Passenger with “no idea how to fly” lands plane after pilot incapacitated

#210

Post by recursive »

theonething wrote: post #176
BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 wrote: post #107

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. :)

I suspect altitude, attitude (aviation), and attitude (mental) were all three correct. :)
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