21–27 of 27 posts
Wait, this is somehow a mystery? Two people who had no experience flying 727s fueled up a plane, somehow got it airborne, and flew out over the Atlantic Ocean never to be seen again. Oh, and 727s require three people to properly fly them. There's no mystery here. They crashed in the Atlantic Ocean.
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News reports and Wikipedia article mention that Ben C. Padilla was an American pilot and flight engineer and had a private pilot's license.
That he held a private pilot's license doesn't tell us much. You can get a private pilot's license without ever flying anything bigger than a single-engine Cessna. A multi-engined jet aircraft like a 727 is a completely different beast.
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The state of 727's five years before this event: Planes equipped with newer Category Three navigational equipment can land on autopilot, even in the worst weather. Pilots never even have to touch the controls. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-02-12-980212...
This is not going to happen at a small airport and without the collaboration of ATC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwbTq_4-jGg CAT3 landing need a lot of things aligned properly to work.
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I'm not a pilot. But with the fact that "somehow" they got airborne, I give them the benefit of doubt re: landing.
My flight simulator experience taught me that landing a big airplane is extremely more difficult than taking off, specially if unassisted by airport instrumentation.
Taking off is mainly a function of airspeed only. Landing is a delicate balance of: airspeed, rate-of-descent and the associated engine power, attitude of the aircraft, and 'eye'.
These stories are interesting because with all our technology it's nice to see a mystery can still exist.
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My flight simulator experience taught me that landing a big airplane is extremely more difficult than taking off, specially if unassisted by airport instrumentation.
While landing is harder, it is easily done with just a bit of practice in a flight simulator if the weather is fair when you are landing the real thing. Landing is nowhere nearly as difficult as people make it out to be. I do not have a pilots certificate, but I've flown real planes a lot in training situations. Granted, that was in a small single engine aircraft, and I've easily spent 100x as much time in simulators…
It was whether a successful takeoff is indicative of a good chance of a successful landing. Speaking strictly about small single-engine Cessnas--in which I have a (lapsed) private pilot's certificate--I'd say it isn't. Landing is, as the parent poster said, harder than takeoff.
I don't think any of this is relevant to the larger discussion, though. First, the pilot did have some certification, though it's unclear from the article in what. Second, neither my experience nor, it sounds, yours, gives me any insight at all into how hard it is to land a modern airliner. ;)