Can you fly this plane and land it? Surely you can't be serious?

February 18, 2016 7:27 AM

You ask and (a person on) the internet provides: What should I do if the pilot passes out and I (with no flight training) have to land the plane? Watch this 10 minute video that walks you through the steps on a Boeing 737. I am serious. And don't call me Shirley. [via Presurfer]

Now that we have that covered, you can also learn how to get a Boeing 737 from cold and dark to ready for taxiing (previously).

posted by filthy light thief (47 comments total)

Because there's always more videos to watch, here's a bunch of training videos, both real cockpit videos and simulations. But remember! DO NOT USE THESE VIDEOS FOR TRAINING PURPOSES. THESE VIDEOS ARE MEANT FOR PRIVATE ENTERTAINMENT ONLY! I HOPE YOU HAVE BEEN THOROUGHLY ENTERTAINED. IF NOT, I APOLOGIZE.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:29 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yes, but what should I do if a businessman flying a small piston aircraft has a heart attack and crashes into the cockpit, blinding the pilot and sucking the co-pilot out through the resulting hole?
posted by kersplunk at 7:35 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

The Talk-Down Aircraft Landing wikipedia page has a few incidents listed, although as I guessed, this pretty much only happens with smaller private planes which have less sophisticated autopilots, if any, and often don't have two trained pilots in the cockpit.

In other words, anyone want to replicate this info for a Cessna?
posted by muddgirl at 7:39 AM on February 18, 2016

In a cruel bit of irony, the armored cockpit doors installed after 9/11 have arguably been involved in more accidents and incidents than potential terrorist plots they've prevented.

So keep that in mind - if both pilots in a 737 somehow are incapacitated, your first step is to break down that door.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:40 AM on February 18, 2016 [9 favorites]

This is good.

I always felt this is what hardcore Microsoft Flight Simulator enthusiasts were always hoping for. One day they'd be on a plane and they'd be called to save the day.

I think they did this on Mythbusters, where they were in a simulator and they were talked down by ATC. They were able to successfully land a plane.

I would assume the average person would be more successful at landing a sophisticated modern jet (assuming they were able to get ATC on the horn) over a Cessna with steam gauges. The Jet you just sort of program, the Cessna is all about feel. Having landed a Cessna a few times I think most people, at the very least, would be able to come to a non-fatal crash landing on the runway if they were talked through it.
posted by bondcliff at 7:42 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

01) post an anon askme

02) wait for mod approval

03) flag every answer that tells you how bad airplane travel is for the environment and you could've just taken the acela you monster

04) flag every answer lecturing you for not having watched this video before getting on the plane

05) die while 200 commenters argue over whether or not the pilot's death was suspicious
posted by poffin boffin at 7:46 AM on February 18, 2016 [34 favorites]

At least the 757 and up can land and take off on auto-pilot on ILS runways.. Now if you're trying to land in podunk airport with visual only, that's a different story.
posted by k5.user at 7:46 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

So keep that in mind - if both pilots in a 737 somehow are incapacitated, your first step is to break down that door.

I'd look for tutorials on how to get passed the cockpit door, and while they probably exist, that search may set off red flags here at work.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:51 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

In a cruel bit of irony, the armored cockpit doors installed after 9/11 have arguably been involved in more accidents and incidents than potential terrorist plots they've prevented.

That's an absurd claim unless "accidents and incidents" includes having to stay in your seat when the pilot needs to pee.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 7:52 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

In other words, anyone want to replicate this info for a Cessna?

I try to do some basic explanation of things with new passengers and the general reaction is usually "if I don't know what it does it can't hurt me", so there's that.

That's an absurd claim unless "accidents and incidents" includes having to stay in your seat when the pilot needs to pee.

Just off the top of my head (and I can really dig in to this if you want to pick that particular fight), there's the Germanwings crash where the copilot locked the pilot out of the cockpit and flew the plane into mountain, and another incident involving a Japanese airline where the pilot got up to pee and when he asked to be let in to the cockpit the copilot accidentally hit the (I think) autopilot disconnect button which just happened to be located right next to the door unlock button and put the plane into an almost unrecoverable dive while the pilot was desperately banging on the door to be let in.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:58 AM on February 18, 2016 [8 favorites]

If you've got working Category III ILS systems on board, and aren't on the brink of running out of fuel, why not set the autopilot to bring you to an airfield that's also equipped with Cat. III ILS?
posted by schmod at 7:59 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Schmod: Because the person posited has no flight training and likely wouldn't know any such thing exists? Let alone how to operate it ...
posted by Paul Slade at 8:05 AM on February 18, 2016

05) die while 200 commenters argue over whether or not the pilot's death was suspicious

Before you die you should also totally eat the leftovers that spent too much time out of the fridge.
posted by srboisvert at 8:08 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

This would be an awesome concept for a game in the same style as the brilliant Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes.

One player has a laptop running a simple flight simulator, and another player who can't see the screen has a printed flight manual...
posted by Ian A.T. at 8:13 AM on February 18, 2016 [10 favorites]

I tried to watch this this morning, but gave up about halfway through. I was wishing he'd chosen a different method of highlighting the controls and displays he's referring to--unfortunately, him using a small, thin, dark-red circle (against such a dark and complicated background) that disappears so shortly was not helping me locate anything he was talking about.

Also, in this scenario, why is a completely uninformed passenger flying the plane instead of one of the flight attendants? They'll have a lot more familiarity with the controls than this particular hypothetical passenger.

(Unless, I suppose, they all had the fish.)
posted by theatro at 8:15 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

In other words, anyone want to replicate this info for a Cessna?

Yeah, my solution to this problem is "Never get in a Cessna."

(That bomb game looks really fun though.)
posted by maryr at 8:27 AM on February 18, 2016

Also, in this scenario, why is a completely uninformed passenger flying the plane instead of one of the flight attendants? They'll have a lot more familiarity with the controls than this particular hypothetical passenger.

No, cabin crew are trained on the operation of cabin systems, particularly those involved in the safe evacuation of passengers. The amount of training overlap between the flight crew and the cabin crew is minimal.
It's always possible that a flight attendant has a background in flying, but it's not a job requirement.
posted by cardboard at 8:32 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

There was a case recently in the UK where the pilot of a light aircraft passed out and his passenger - no flying experience - had to land it. The major complication was that this was an evening flight and the passenger couldn't turn on the instrument illumination. The Cessna was quite old and had been modified quite a bit, and there wasn't time before it got dark to work out on the ground via radio which was the panel light switch and which was, say, the engine.

So the passenger had to land in the dark with no instruments. Took him three goes, but he got down.

There was a TV documentary about this recently, which I can't find online, but if you search Youtube for humberside talkdown you'll get a fair bit.
posted by Devonian at 8:43 AM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is why we should offer flight training as a mandatory class for all of our high schoolers.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:51 AM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

> If you've got working Category III ILS systems on board, and aren't on the brink of running out of fuel, why not set the autopilot to bring you to an airfield that's also equipped with Cat. III ILS?

OBVIOUSLY because terrorists have, in the past (Christmas 1989) taken control of an airport during a blizzard and used their "evil twin" control tower to adjust the ILS altitude information to crash airplanes, all as part of a complicated jailbreak by ex-Special Forces mercenaries. If it happened once, it can happen again!
posted by Sunburnt at 9:18 AM on February 18, 2016 [4 favorites]

This is why we should offer flight training as a mandatory class for all of our high schoolers.

My school district cut Driver's Ed because it was too expensive.
posted by R a c h e l at 9:24 AM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

Now if you're trying to land in podunk airport with visual only, that's a different story....

...Altogether!
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:32 AM on February 18, 2016 [5 favorites]

That Humberside talk down was fantastic. The passenger and pilot were both retired RAF and the pilot had a heart attack. The passenger was an enthusiastic passenger who never had the controls before. The C4 film about it was really good, the young female RAF staffer on the rescue helicopter was sweet about him. His demeanour was suitably British (unflappable) but it took a couple of aborted approaches and it was a good thing he stuck the last one.
posted by C.A.S. at 9:39 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is why we should offer flight training as a mandatory class for all of our high schoolers.

That's a ridiculously impractical use of resources for something teens will never need.

Besides, the mandatory giant robot piloting courses should cover that already.
posted by happyroach at 9:46 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

The idea of using a PC flight sim to prepare to be able to be able to land a plane IRL resulted in a fantastic bet, as documented here.....

prop bet can I land a plane on my first try?

The video of the experiment is here

flight simmer attempts a Cessna landing IRL
posted by C.A.S. at 9:46 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's important to remember if this ever happens to you that they're all counting on you. So good luck.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:47 AM on February 18, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'll play Otto.
posted by Devonian at 9:59 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Have you ever landed a plane on a Turkish prison?
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:07 AM on February 18, 2016

Do you like it when a 737 grabs your leg and rubs up and down?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:14 AM on February 18, 2016

It's always possible that a flight attendant has a background in flying, but it's not a job requirement.

I know, cardboard, but the scenario in the video is a completely uninformed passenger, on a commercial flight with flight attendants. I don't see why the passenger is the best one to get in the seat, out of the whole group of hypothetical untrained people.
posted by theatro at 10:14 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

[doesn't go to search for porn in which people have the sex with airliners because I just know it exists]
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:14 AM on February 18, 2016

I know, cardboard, but the scenario in the video is a completely uninformed passenger, on a commercial flight with flight attendants. I don't see why the passenger is the best one to get in the seat, out of the whole group of hypothetical untrained people.

The flight attendants are going to be busy keeping the rest of the passengers from panicking to death.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:16 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

The idea of using a PC flight sim to prepare to be able to be able to land a plane IRL resulted in a fantastic bet, as documented here.....

In regards to helicopters, it's interesting to watch Dslyexci, a respected pilot in the ArmA and DCS community (amongst many other things), finally get a chance to get behind the controls of a real helicopter and spend several days learning IRL piloting and comparing what he learned from the simulators vs. real-life flying.

Note: These are all very long-form videos, but all are exceptionally well made and thought out (Bohemia Interactive, the creators of ArmA, employ him as a contractor for their guides and videos), but if the idea of comparing simulators to IRL flight (or even just top-shelf, combined ops military sims) interests you, there's all sorts of interesting stuff there for you.
posted by chambers at 10:19 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

Besides, the mandatory giant robot piloting courses should cover that already.

Depends if they're teaching Macross or Gundam.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:45 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

comparing simulators to IRL flight

Simulators run the gamut from simple to very, very complex and it is really interesting to see the differences between them.

In college, I was in a flying club and we participated in an annual collegiate flying competition (as the only team of students who were not actively pursuing aviation-related degrees for the purposes of flying for the airlines). One of the events is a simulator flying event, where they give you a set path to fly (including a combination of straight-and-level, turns, climbs and descents, and combinations of those) and they score you based on timing and deviation. That level of GA simulator is fairly straightforward, and we were able to spend a couple hours fiddling with it to figure out the exact power settings and bank angles to get the performance we wanted. So, for example, climbs were supposed to be executed at 500 ft/min; we were able to determine what power setting to put the simulator in to hit exactly 500 ft/min every single time, since the simulator wasn't smart enough to throw any variability in to the mix. I was our sim pilot for that event and won easily.

A couple years ago, I got a tour of the sim school for the plane I was working on (large Air Force platform). Full motion simulators, top of the line stuff. They did a little demo for us - didn't turn the motion on, but even without that it was enough to be completely absorbed into it. Our demo operator did a takeoff roll and about 10 feet off the ground he says, "Ok, let's go do something different" and hits the pause button - and it's just like pausing a video game, all the gauges stop dead, the video projection stands still, and I (sitting in the copilot seat) lunged for the controls because it was so convincing that I thought the plane was falling out of the sky and we were going to die.
posted by backseatpilot at 10:55 AM on February 18, 2016 [9 favorites]

Besides, the mandatory giant robot piloting courses should cover that already.

Depends if they're teaching Macross or Gundam.

Just as long as they're not teaching Evangelions.
posted by maryr at 11:00 AM on February 18, 2016 [2 favorites]

MythBusters tested this in flight simulators. Adam, without any help, repeatedly crashed the plane -- couldn't even get on the runway, much less land it.

Jamie, with an experienced pilot in the type on the "radio," landed it on the correct runway first try -- mostly by using the autopilot, but he had to flare and brake by hand, and deal with all the other details -- gear, flaps, trim, and so forth.

Simply having somebody who knows all the flight rules on the A/C is huge -- a fast way to kill yourself is deploying flaps/gear when you're going to fast, or retracting flaps when you're going too slow, and there are a lot more ways to screw that up. Yes, there are usually placards to warn you about this, but do you know how to read them?

Having a qualified pilot on the radio with you means he's thinking about all that and you don't accidentally prang the plane by doing things in the wrong order or at the wrong airspeed.
posted by eriko at 11:04 AM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

chambers: "The idea of using a PC flight sim to prepare to be able to be able to land a plane IRL resulted in a fantastic bet, as documented here.....

In regards to helicopters, it's interesting to watch Dslyexci, a respected pilot in the ArmA and DCS community (amongst many other things), finally get a chance to get behind the controls of a real helicopter and spend several days learning IRL piloting and comparing what he learned from the simulators vs. real-life flying.."

WHERE IS MY HOVERCAR DAMNIT???

I am so jealous. It looks like a LOT of fun!
posted by symbioid at 11:39 AM on February 18, 2016

I had the awesome experience of having a session in a full motion flight simulator a year or so ago. With a flight instructor walking me through it, I was able to land on my first try in San Francisco in full fog using only instruments to guide me down. Now, I almost went off the runway due to the new experience of breaking and steering simultaneously with my feet, but I landed. This was a low stress environment for sure, but I can see how someone who has never seen a cockpit before could be talked through it by an experienced pilot.
posted by noneuclidean at 12:01 PM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

Becoming a hero sounds really easy! Now...how do I get these two pilots unconscious and into the cockpit? Asking for a friend....
posted by mortimore at 1:43 PM on February 18, 2016

So by watching this video I have arguably made myself the most qualified person among dozens of helpless passengers to land a pilotless 737. Great. That is a thin rope on which to hang a planeful of hopes.
posted by veggieboy at 1:59 PM on February 18, 2016

Devonian: "The major complication was that this was an evening flight and the passenger couldn't turn on the instrument illumination."

Yet another reason to carry a tiny flashlight with you everywhere that you go.

no, your phone does not count.
posted by schmod at 4:20 PM on February 18, 2016

Does my backup phone battery count? It has an LED.
posted by maryr at 4:58 PM on February 18, 2016

@C.A.S. - Thanks for that link! I used to hang out on 2+2 a lot back when poker was booming, but haven't been even an infrequent visitor recently. That prop bet (prop bet can I land a plane on my first try?) thread and the resulting video were a lot of fun to both read and watch. It reminded me of what I used to like about 2+2 before everything went to shit. Thanks for linking to that - good times, good times.
posted by mosk at 5:58 PM on February 18, 2016 [1 favorite]

They should show this video before takeoff on all flights.
posted by mazola at 10:16 PM on February 18, 2016

Just watching the video got me a bit clammy, but I really want to try it now. In a simulator though.

What do you do if you fly out of range of a tower before managing to get the next one's frequency?
posted by lucidium at 5:29 AM on February 19, 2016

What do you do if you fly out of range of a tower before managing to get the next one's frequency?

Over the land in the United States it generally doesn't happen. Controllers have sectors of airspace that are smaller than the range of their radios. However, the procedure depends on how you're flying.

If you're VFR (visual flight rules) and the controller can't hand you off to the next guy for whatever reason (this happens a lot to me when I try to transit through New York airspace because it's incredibly busy all the time), the controller will basically tell you that the next guy down the line can't accept you right now and give you a frequency to try later. If they had given you a discrete transponder code previously, they'll tell you to "squawk VFR" (set the transponder to 1200) to let the controllers know that you're out there but not being guided by ATC.

If you're IFR (instrument flight rules) and you're over land in the United States, losing communication with ATC is a problem. If it does happen, you as pilot are expected to continue to follow the route you were given as part of your departure clearance and "squawk 7600" (set transponder to 7600, loss comm emergency code). ATC will recognize that you're out there but unable to communicate and will direct traffic away from your route of flight. If you're still out of communication by the time you reach your destination, you're supposed to enter a hold until your estimated time of arrival which you supplied as part of your flight plan, and then shoot an approach to the airport (which will in all likelihood be completely closed down to other incoming traffic).

Going oceanic or remote is a little different, because you expect to lose communications - there are no radio transmitters over the ocean. This is solved by spacing planes out a bit more and flying predetermined routes; it's a bit like running trains at this point - you get a block of airspace that's yours and no one else is expected to fly there. Based on the performance of your aircraft, the controllers expect you to check in at set intervals when there's land nearby and someone is around to hear you. So, for example, flying from New York to London sends you over the North Atlantic, where you'll say goodbye to the last controller in Canada with your expected arrival at the next sector controller (Iceland, probably), and then at that time someone will at the next sector will be expecting your call. If you don't check in, they eventually send the rescue party.

All of this is currently changing, though. New technology is making long range communications easier; things like sat phones mean a pilot can call their dispatch office while they're flying over the ocean. The FAA's Nextgen program as well as similar programs from other international agencies are bringing us things like CPDLC where you don't even need to be in voice communication with air traffic control, but this is all in its infancy right now.
posted by backseatpilot at 5:54 AM on February 19, 2016 [3 favorites]